Opinion or Judgment?

An opinion is a personal appraisal formed in your mind about a particular matter. It is based on the totality of your personal experiences and colored by your likes, dislikes, cultural norms and expectations, religious beliefs, and your friends and family’s own opinions. Opinions change over the years as new experiences inform and educate your worldview.

When we feel the need to express our opinions from a place that will make us feel better about ourselves, we have crossed the threshold into judgment. At this point we begin imposing our beliefs onto others and making them good or bad, or right or wrong. We have stepped into being arbiters of what we deem should be so or not so. This is dangerous territory. It is never okay to make yourself feel good by making someone else feel badly about themselves.

Buddhism teaches that there is no right or wrong. There are only thoughts, words, or actions that will help us grow as humans or those that will not. This is an extremely difficult concept for westerners to wrap their heads around because our Christian heritage teaches the exact opposite; that there is a clear line in the sand between right and wrong. However, as I have worked on picking the weeds of judgment from my own garden, I realize that there is no line in the sand, everything exists on a continuum.

The human experience allows for a wonderful diversity of choices, all deserving respect. We may know what is right for us but we must practice acceptance and tolerance for those we don’t agree with. Each of us has a right to pursue a life of our choosing but we don’t have the right to impose our opinions or judgments onto others.