Judgment

Another piece from a class last semester that was exploring the use of footnotes.

Upon commencing an analysis of my process of judging, I had a hard time finding a process. The traditional negative connotation of the word was not working for me, so I tried to concentrate on the denotation of the word. I still had a difficult time because I do not have a process of judging things like people or classes. I automatically assume the best of people without really thinking about what I am doing. After focusing on the basic decisions of the day, such as getting up, going to class, and doing my homework, I had more success with my analysis. I came to the conclusion that I do pretty much everything for the purely selfish reason of wanting to do it.* I say selfish only because that is an instinctual reaction to want as a reason for actions.
In reality, I would say that I am not selfish, but I have a good outlook on life. I want to do things because I need to do them as opposed to doing things because I want to do them. People always have an easier time doing what they want to do, so by wanting to do everything, I have made my process of judgment easier. In addition, when I want to do something I am more cheerful doing it, which makes it easier to get along with people. I like people and want to like them and I have experience with being left out, so I always think well of people until they prove that I should not, which is rarer than the average pessimist or even optimist would expect.
The process of judging for me is fairly simple at first glance, but more complex after a thorough examination. I believe it has a lot to do with a person’s attitude, belief systems, and view of life. There are so many factors that play into making decisions that it is impossible to avoid complexity, but like many things, it appears simple when you look only at the surface.

*This may seem like an impossible statement because of how many things I have to do any given day. How is it possible to like all of them? I may not like doing everything that is required of me, but I almost always want to do everything. There are exceptions to this, but when does anything in life not have exceptions? Our method of communication is full of exceptions, so how can anything else not follow this pattern? It is simply human to have exceptions and not be absolutely sure about anything. However, if there are exceptions to everything, then there is no exception to this, which is paradoxical.