The Dynamics Of Judgment LL&L LIVE 8-2-21

In today's LIVE episode of Life, Lessons, & Laughter with Glenn Ambrose, I'll be discussing judgment. Is it useful? What's the difference between judgment and assessing? Can self-judgment be helpful? Is it healthy to judge others in order to keep ourselves safe? All these questions and more. Recorded live on 8-2-21

Transcript

Welcome to Life, Lessons, And Laughter with your host, Glenn Ambrose. Hello, Hello, Hello. What's happening people? Let's see, I'm going to go on my phone as usual and enable the comments, I hope. And yeah, This, I got to say, I put out a question earlier and it was not that long ago. And wow, The replies I got were phenomenal. Okay, So that's good. Public, That's the one who can comment on my post. Public. Okay, So I think I got it. Yeah, You know, Tune in and say hello people. Say hello, Let me know you're here. So I'm going to start with discussing, Discussing what I'm discussing today, Which is judgment. Judgment, The difference between judgment, Assessing, Etc, Etc. So like I said, I got some amazing comments on Facebook. I haven't checked Instagram, Which I'm doing right now. And I'm going to see, See if I get any comments on that. I'm not really seeing any. All right, So the Facebook, I'm going to get right to it. I thought this would actually be a good way to start the show because, You know, People are still tuning in. And on my Facebook post, You can always go back and read them yourself. But I got some awesome input. I posted what's the difference between judging and assessing. And I'm not going to give last names because I never know who is cool with that and who's not. So, You know, For anonymity sake, I'll just kind of just use a first name. So Jeffrey, Judging is a decision one way or the other, Not necessarily bad or good, Depending on the circumstances. Assessing is looking at a situation from different angles. No final judgment is made. Lots of folks assess themselves to help improve their well-being. And then he posted an example of this in a sentence. I could be a chili cook off judge, But first I must assess the chili. So in this way, You know, It's a really good example of how he's right. So, You know, In this way, The words that are used are, It depends, You know, The way that, Because this is not the way I was coming at it specifically, And I'll get into that a little bit more. But, You know, He gave such a good example that it's like, Yeah, You know, He's right. So everything is perception based. So, And what is funny is right before I read this, I was just thinking about the show for a minute and eating a hard boiled egg to get a little food in my stomach. And I was like, Hey, You know, So what might I say? And I was thinking that judging basically, Basically judging is pretty straightforward. I think a lot of us are going to agree on judging, What judging is and what it looks like. Are there still perspective slants on it? Yes, Of course there are. There's a perspective slant on everything. But I think it's going to be easier to identify what judging is and what it isn't, As opposed to the alternative. The alternative for the sake of this conversation, What I'm using is the word assessing. So assessing can, I believe, Can probably be replaced by many other words based on one's own perception. So I think that there's a little bit more flexibility with assessing than there is with the word judgment, With the words themselves. It doesn't really matter what word you use because I'm talking about dynamics. So if you're listening to this and you're going, Well, That's not how I see judging, Well, Then don't, That's fine. Pay attention to the dynamic because that's what the message is about. Do you perform one dynamic and not another? Or, You know, I'm trying to bring clarity on the dynamics that are healthy and that are not healthy. So what word do you use? Or if you think that there's a little bit of a different meaning for a word that's completely secondary. It doesn't really matter. You know, Throw out the word, Look for the message. So in this particular situation, Like I was saying, Jeff's right. It's like, You know, Like I'm assessing things and then I'll make my judgment based on what I assess. And Kevin threw out, I think he was making fun of me because, Or not making fun of me. He was making fun of the spellings, The difference between the assessment and judgment. Sarah, Assessment is evaluating factual information and forming an opinion based on it. Judgment is placing one's own beliefs on another person or situation, Most likely without a factual basis. Assessment is a much more objective and less centered on the ego. At least that's how I see it. That's more in line with how I see it as well. Carrie, By judging, You are giving no alternative option for an outcome of the situation. Judging is very opinion based and can often be negative. I also believe the root of judgment can stem from fear. Assessing is realizing that a situation can have more than one outcome and you make the best choice based on what you observe and on the facts presented, Whether good or bad. I'm liking this Carrie. I'm liking it. Cindy, Judging, You are basing your beliefs on what you see or hear without the facts. Assessing, Checking facts or knowing for sure. Be nice, You never know what someone might be going through. And this was really helpful because I think it brought into clarity something that I was kind of, It was capturing my attention when I was reading some of the other replies. And I hadn't tuned into it yet to figure out how I was going to address it, But it did send up some red flags. And those red flags were judging is opinion based. And then what was the other one? I think there might have been one or two. Assessment is evaluating factual information. So like what I saw judging is placing one's own beliefs on another person or other situation, Most likely without a factual basis. So that was the little piece that was jumping out. Although I agree with what was said in the spirit in which it was said, I saw something that I felt needed some fine tuning. And then Cindy was nice enough to help point it out for me. So what that, You know, And I had no idea I was going to start here, But it is where I'm going to start. So the judging, Well, I'll just say kind of what I meant by my question. Judging is when you judge another person, Basically that's good or bad. Assessing the way I was using it was more assessing the situation to see if there was something you could learn from it. So judging the past is good or bad, You know, I'll use the past as an example. Judging the past as good or bad is not beneficial. It doesn't help. Well, That was bad that that happened. Well, That was good that that happened. It doesn't matter. Like it already happened. It's past. So judging whether it was good or bad is useless. It holds no value when you're looking back at it. When you're looking back, I mean, Don't get me wrong. I mean, You can have a memory. Hey, You know, Boy, Going to the to the park was was fun. I really enjoyed that. Okay, Good. Got a little blast of a good feeling and stuff. But, You know, It's not going to necessarily value your life. If you assess it and go, Would I like to do this again or would I not like to do that again? Assessing is determining value. So is there value in this? Would it be worth doing this? Yes. Oh, Okay. Well, Then, You know, That's we can learn from our past. If we look back at our past and we go, Should I judge? Should I do this again or should I not do this again? Should I try to make sure this experience doesn't happen again or should I or should I not? Did I enjoy this or did I not enjoy that? That's that's all assessment. That's all learning from our past. And that's useful. The problem is, Is that we judge it as good or bad. That is not useful. That's just an opinionated judgment that holds no value. And it does feed our ego because we create separation. You know, If we determine something is bad. And, You know, And well, Especially if it's about somebody else or a situation outside of that's bad, They're bad. That what they did was bad. Oh, Okay. So so then by what we're doing is that's when it turns into a complaint. They shouldn't have done that. So what we're saying when we when we judge a situation and say it's bad, It shouldn't have happened. It did happen. So that it did. What do you mean it shouldn't have? It did. Yeah, But it shouldn't have. Yeah, But it did like you can't go back in time. So the term it shouldn't have happened is completely null and void of logic. It holds no place because it literally did. How could how could it shouldn't have? You know, It's as soon as something happens, There's no place for judgment. Whether it should have happened or shouldn't have happened. It did. So that's where we are now. Now it's part of reality. So we have to deal with the fact that it did and move forward. Going back and determining whether it should have or shouldn't have or was good or bad holds no value. Assessing the situation holds value. Judgment doesn't. Okay, So that's basically my interpretation of my own question. And which brings me right into what I was saying a minute ago. It's like it's not it's not about facts or not facts. Because facts, There kind of is no facts. Everything is perception based. Everything is perception based. So what is a factual truth to me could be a factual non-truth to somebody else. You know, Or a different situation. So it's like, You know, We do this in society in different places. Like so we judge something as good or bad and we think it's a fact. So it's like, I'm trying to choose. I've got like I've got a bunch of different scenarios coming in because like I've discussed this on different levels. And this is the interesting thing with spirituality and this type of talk. There's so much overlap. So like I'm getting examples from like six different places right now about this with different conversations that I've had. And it's like which one do I choose? So what I'm going to do is just you know pick something that is kind of broad. So in one perspective, Like if a tree is growing and somebody likes that tree, Then they go, Oh my God, This tree is beautiful. And then a vine comes in that wraps itself around and kills that tree. And they're like, Oh my God, That's just horrible. I love that tree. That tree is so wonderful. It had the right to live. Why did this vine come in and kill it? These vines are not nice and they're bad. And you know there's something wrong with the existence of these vines because they kill other things to live. It's like, Well, That's a fact. Yeah, It kills other things to live. But your perspective shades that fact. So it killed the tree to live. But why does the tree have more right to live than the vine? Like the vine has a place in nature as well, Otherwise it wouldn't exist. So why is the tree more important than the vine? So to the vine, There was nothing wrong with killing the tree. To the tree, There was something wrong with it. And probably not to either one of them, But the lovers of the vine and the lovers of the tree because it takes our human mind to make these judgments. So the person that loves the tree hates the vine and that's a fact in their brain because the vine's bad. You know, So everything is like this. It's all subjective. Everything is based on perspectives. So this is what I'm talking about with the judgment. It's not so fact-based. We think we have facts in this world and this is one of the reasons why we need to stop judging is because we don't have facts. Because there are pretty much no facts. There's only opinions. There's only subjective perspectives. That's all there is. Our reality is our perspectives, Literally. I say it over and over and over. Literally. And I don't mean that lightly. Literally. If you are in a world and you are looking at a certain situation and you judge it as bad and you're going, Everything's messed up. This is bad. This is horrible. This is bad. This is fact. And then all of a sudden you wake up the next day and maybe something happened overnight. I've experienced this. Maybe you got a new piece of information. Maybe you met somebody who really made you feel alive so you're in a really good mood. Whatever. You look at the same exact situations and you go, Eh, Not a big fan of those things but it's really not that big of a deal. It's fine. It's part of life. Well, Wait a minute. Yesterday this was the end all be all. It's horrible. And then now it's a part of life? And it doesn't bother you? How did you go from there to here? This is how we live our lives. We change our opinions all the time. We change our perspectives all the time. Which is all that spiritual awakenings are. It's just awakening up to see things from a different perspective. That's it. That's all. You saw things from one perspective. One of my first experiences of this was when I was getting sober. So that was 18 years ago. So I was getting sober and people were saying spiritual experience. You've got to have a spiritual experience or you might have a spiritual experience and all this stuff. And I'm like, What the hell? What are my chances of that? It sounded so ominous. And then I understood that in the back of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, There's this part in the appendices that says spiritual experience. So I read that and it explains that a spiritual experience is just a change of perspective. And I was like, Okay, So have I ever changed my perspective on anything? Well, Yeah, Lots of things. I mean, When I was a kid, When I was little, I thought my father was a superhero. Then I became a teenager and I did not think that. I had a very different perspective on who my father was. And then I got sober and I had a different perspective on what my father was. But just from a kid to a teenager, My perspective on my father changed dramatically. It changed on a lot of things dramatically during that time because I was growing, I was changing, I was evolving, I was interacting with life in a different way and that causes change of perspectives. So this is why we have to be careful using the term facts because there kind of aren't any. It's all subjective. This is why, Once we understand that, I have a friend of mine who I think of this when I think about this subject. He is very talented as a person who researches stuff, Assesses stuff. He's very good at deducting things. And there's a word that I'm missing, But whatever, You'll get the point. So there's all these deductions. Now this was a long time ago, Eight years ago or something. And with some of the political unrest was just starting back then, He was noticing because of his research capabilities and stuff, He was like, There is no truth. There is no truth out there. Like you can literally make a statement on either side of any topic and you can back it up with factual evidence depending on how you come at that. And I was like, Yes, Yes, This is true. And he's like, Yeah, But it's completely true. Like this is what I do, Like data analysis. That's what I was talking about. That's the word I was missing. Analysis. He analyzes this stuff and is really good at it. So he was able to come at it and go like, Everything is like this. So why are people arguing? It's like because we haven't come to that conclusion yet. So hopefully this can help you come to that conclusion. Like no matter what side you've chosen on some sort of political argument and you think it's fact-based, It's not. I don't give a crap what side you're on. The fact that you picked a side means that you're only looking at it from one perspective because there is another perspective. So if you get to a… This is why getting to the space of understanding that you don't know is so good. You can make your assessments. You can make your choices based on what you are leaning in a direction of believing to be closer to the truth or more beneficial to you than the other side. You can make those assessments and you can make your freedom of choice. You can do that, But when you think you're holding the facts and the truth, You're mistaken because it can be picked apart. Everything can be picked apart. And then as soon as somebody starts picking it apart on the other side, You go, That's ridiculous. No, It's not ridiculous. They actually believe what they're saying because they're coming at it from a different perspective. So it's literally their truth. This is why we need to take out judgment. This is why we need to understand that we have the right to assess any situation that we want and choose what to do within that situation. To design our lives for something that's beneficial to us, It's not beneficial to us. We have the right to do that. But when we're running around judging things and we think that they're based on fact, It's not. So let's bring it into judging people, You know, And judging ourselves. Like judging ourselves is one of the biggest problems that we have. We beat the living crap out of ourselves. We are our own worst critics and we need to lighten up on ourselves. You know, This will guarantee, I guarantee it will bring more happiness into your life. If you make a conscious effort to stop judging yourself because it's such a huge problem, We are constantly judging ourselves. It's because it's the way we were raised and the way we were conditioned, Like by society. We were conditioned that if we punish ourselves enough, Then we will change our behavior. So we punish ourselves in the hopes of changing our behavior, But it doesn't do that. What it does is it makes us feel worse about ourselves. So one, We don't have the energy to change our behavior because we're low energy. We feel like crap about ourselves and it just feeds the negative cycle. I mean, Addicts are a beautiful example of this. You know, Like if you want to understand addiction, You know, Like just go into what an alcoholic experience is on a daily basis. Like an alcoholic will feel like crap about themselves or their environment or both. They're not happy with life. They're maladjusted to life. So they are not happy with the life that they are living. So they don't feel good about themselves or the life that they're living. So they drink. They drink. They feel better for the moment. So it anesthetizes that. But then usually they go out and do something stupid or even if they don't, You just get a hangover the next day. You drink. You don't feel good. You're like, Oh crap, I drank again. I'm such a loser. And then you judge yourself for drinking, Which makes you feel worse about yourself, Which is the very thing that makes you drink. So then you go drink and then you feel worse about yourself and then you judge yourself. So then you go drink. And that's the cycle. You know, That's the cycle of alcoholics and addicts. And I say this often, The only, The interesting thing about alcoholics and addicts, I love using them as an example. One, Because I was one. And two, Because what they do is they take the average dysfunction that most people are dealing with and blow it out of proportion. They're an extreme version of what most people are dealing with. So most people do not like themselves, But they don't destroy their lives with alcohol. They destroy themselves in a much slower way by living an unhappy life, By, You know, Not, Well, Just not living a happy life, A happy life with no joy, With no happiness. And then we wonder why so many people are on antidepressants. And we go, Yeah, Well, I have a chemical imbalance. Well, Yeah, No kidding. You have a chemical imbalance. Why? Like, Why do we have a chemical imbalance? People have chemical imbalances because they're not producing the chemicals. Why are they not producing the chemicals? Because they don't like their life. There's no dopamine being produced. There's no serotonin being produced. There's nothing that's going to make them feel good. Their body isn't going to produce that because they're not experiencing anything that makes them feel good. So then, So then instead of dealing with that reality, We take a pill. Go, Oh, Well, I have a chemical imbalance. Well, You weren't born with it. Where did it come from? You developed it. You know, Well, We develop, Sometimes that's how things manifest. I mean, Of course, Sometimes there's chemical imbalances, Whatever. But I'm talking about the majority of the cases. And I know everybody that's taking it is going to go, Well, Not me. I was pretty satisfied with my life. We are masters of distraction in our society. Go deeper. You know, You need to go deeper to see the truth. So we distract ourselves from how unhappy we are. We sit there and we go, Well, My job's good. You know, I have a nice house. My spouse doesn't piss me off on a regular basis. The kids are okay. I was happy. Now all of a sudden, I have this chemical imbalance. That's not happiness. That's external stuff that you did in line, In alignment with what society taught you to do. And you think if you have those things, You're going to be experiencing happiness and joy. But those don't bring happiness and joy. That's not where happiness and joy comes from. Happiness and joy comes from within. So it has nothing to do with external stuff. If you're happy already and you have a nice house or you have a good relationship or you're close with your kids, You can express that happiness through interactions with them. But they are not the source of your happiness. Nobody is. Nothing is. Happiness comes from within. So if you're labeling external things as to why you were actually happy before your chemical imbalance came in, No. If it's external, Then you weren't happy. It's just we didn't know this stuff. We don't know this stuff. This is why I'm talking about it. It's because we need to learn this stuff. We need to learn to go deeper. We need to learn how we function. We need to learn how to live happy lives without judgment of ourselves. So yeah, Let's get back to that. So judging ourselves is like a pastime. And we think that it's going to change our behaviors because that's what we're taught. But it's been proven scientifically that negative reinforcement does not change negative behavior. Positive reinforcement changes negative behavior. So we need to stop beating ourselves up. We need to stop judging ourselves and we need to start patting ourselves on the back for the things we do right. And following those breadcrumbs of goodness. Set yourself up for something a little small that you can have some success with. Oh, I, You know, I set my alarm and I was still for 30 seconds today. Good. Excellent. Pat yourself on the back. Yeah, You. See if you can do it tomorrow. You probably can because you did it today. Excellent. We need to start feeding ourselves stuff like that. Too many people stay stuck and they don't know why. It's because they're stuck beating themselves up and judging themselves. Stop beating yourself up and judging yourself and start, You know, Just doing one small little positive thing and then pat yourself on the back for that. Positive reinforcement, Positive reinforcement that raises your energy instead of lowering your energy. It makes you empowered instead of disempowered. So this is what we need to start doing and this is really why I'm having this conversation is to stop the self judgment. And most people that listen to me have very large hearts that those are the people just about everybody that is on a self-help journey, A spiritual journey, A bettering themselves journey has a very large heart and with some level of openness to that heart. And I know this because people who are locked into being an asshole don't work on themselves. They have no interest in becoming a better person. So why would they? Right? So most people listening to this have a very large heart. So what we do is we try intellectually, We separate how much we judge ourselves with how much we judge others. And we draw this imaginary line that says we're a good person. So of course we don't judge other people. We try not to judge them. You know, Hey, We're understanding we're loving people. Right. And what I'm here to tell you is I found out through my own experience that you can't draw a line there. Judgment is judgment. You're either judgmental or you're not judgmental. And most things are like this. You either are or you're not. It's kind of like being a little pregnant. You either are or you're not. So if you are judgmental, You might judge yourself more than you judge other people, But you're judging other people too. And if you look closely, You'll start seeing it. Maybe you don't character assassinate them. Maybe it's not external. Maybe you've cut back on gossip. But inside your head, You are judging other people because you either judge or you don't. And the way I found this out in my own experience was actually backwards. I was doing a non-judgmental driving thing because driving in the States was always an issue for me. I developed very bad habits at a very young age and they were hard. So I would unconsciously get caught up in getting irritated. Well, What am I getting irritated? I'm judging what other people are doing. Right? So I was like, I made a rule, Non-judgmental driving. So before I turn the key, I always stopped, Paused, Centered myself. And I said, This is going to be a non-judgmental drive. I am not allowed to judge anyone for any situation at all because I cannot climb inside of them and find out why they did what they did. And if I don't have the facts, I am not equipped to make a fair judgment about anybody. That's what that is, Is making a judgment without having the facts. Another way of saying that is making a judgment before you have the facts. That's called being prejudiced. That's prejudging. That's what the word prejudice means. So I was like, Well, I am not going to be prejudiced. I am not going to make judgments on people without having all the information. So I'm not judging anybody. So I did this. I did this for a little bit. And after about a week or two, I noticed that I was really, Really feeling good about me. Like it had nothing to do with driving. It had nothing. I just really felt good about myself. My self-esteem was rising. My self-love was rising. And I noticed it and I was like, Wow, What am I doing right? I love learning from that. Like what am I doing right? I love learning from success. So I've always asked myself when things are going right, What am I doing right? And I was like, I don't know, Man. The only thing that I can see is different is this non-judgmental driving. And then all of a sudden this flash came out and it was like, You're either judging or you're not. You can't separate yourself from others. So when I was practicing not judging others, I was becoming less judgmental. Period. And as I became less judgmental, By proxy, I was less judgmental to myself without even trying. And since I was less judgmental to myself, Without even being conscious of it, My self-esteem started rising. My self-love started rising because I wasn't beating myself up over stupid little things anymore. So that's when I understood judgment is judgment. Now you take that, Right? That was the moment I saw it. This might have been, I don't know, 12 years ago, Maybe? That was how I learned it. That's how I saw it. And then you take that and you take a giant step back and you blow that out into a larger perspective. What's true in a microcosm is true in a macrocosm. That's spirituality. That's a spiritual law. And I was like, Oh my God, We are all one. Spiritually speaking, We are all one. We are all one energy field. We are all connected. We create the illusion of separation from one another through our ego, Which is the root of most of the problems here on earth, Separation from one another. But when I'm judging somebody else, I am judging myself because we're one. So in a grand spiritual mentality, It makes sense there. Then you bring it into my little microcosm experiment with non-judgmental driving and it's true there. So it's the same in the microcosm as it is in the macrocosm. Must be truth. Must be spiritual law. Must be spiritual truth. This is how I latch onto things. When I see something that seems to be true, I assess it. I don't judge it. I look at it and I go, Okay, Well, You know, Is it true in every situation? Oh my God, Yeah, It must be. You know, Some of it's unconscious. I don't realize I'm judging other people sometimes. But if I'm deeply honest with myself, Of course I judge people. Then if I judge people sometimes, Why can't it be connected to the fact that I judge myself? It can. It literally can. It's possible. Okay, Well, Does it make sense in a macrocosm? Yes. Does it make sense in a microcosm? Yes. And then with stuff like that, This is why I go, Oh, Okay, I think that's something I can hang my hat on. Unless two years down the road, More information comes in. I hold everything loosely. If more information comes in and I change my assessment, Anything's possible. I'm not God. I don't freaking know. You know, I'm pretty sure this is spiritual truth, But I hold it loosely with the possibility of it changing. Maybe I deluded myself in some way. I don't know. You know, I'm not perfect. But until I see something that makes more sense and benefits me more, Then I'm hanging my hat on that. Which is the other reason why I love living spiritually is because, Like, It's. . . People think living spiritually is this woo-woo mentality, And it's not. It holds more water than not living spiritually. That's the woo-woo stuff. So if I look at this and I go, Okay, Well, If I stop judging myself, I'll stop judging others, And I should stop judging both, And I'll be happier. And then I implement that, And I am happier. That holds water. It proved by my own happiness that it worked. So that's something I can believe in. Whereas a lot of times, If we go out into society and say, Well, What is society teaching? Oh, Well, You can be hard on yourself, But, You know, Not necessarily judge other people. Well, Really? Okay, Prove how that's possible. And show me an example of somebody who implemented that and then came out happier. By allowing themselves to either judge other people or judge themselves. Either way, Show me an example of how somebody implemented that into their life and came out a happier person. I'd be hard-pressed to find one. This is why spirituality holds the water. It's actually realistic. It's functional. It changes your life on a day-to-day basis. It's real. Whereas what society teaches is not. It simply doesn't hold water. There's no factual objective, Right? There's no facts to back it up. There's no actual experience to back it up. You can't even do a science experiment and show me that it works. Most of the things that society teaches, I like that. I mean, If you really dive into them logically, They don't make sense. You know, A lot of the things that people accept as societal and, You know, People go, Oh, Well, It's just how it is. It's just a fact. It's like, Oh, Really? I don't think so. I don't think that's the way things are. So this is how I found out that the judgment, Judging is judging. If we're expecting to continue finding more happiness and peace, Which is what it's about, I mean, You know, Yeah, I say living spiritually all the time. Who gives a crap? I don't give a crap about living spiritually. What I give a crap about is how it manifests in my life. Am I happier? Am I more peaceful? Am I more loving? Do I love myself better? Do I love others better? Yeah. Okay. Then I'm interested. No, Not interested. You know, I know I use the term spiritual, But it's just a term pointing towards something. It's not it. You know, So I don't care if you call it spiritual. I don't care if you call it effective. I don't care if you call it self-help. I don't, You know, It doesn't matter what you call it. It just doesn't work. And judging yourself and others doesn't work. If you're interested in happiness, Self-esteem, Love, Peace, If you're judging, It's going to suffer. So another way I heard this was like in recovery, They say you must stop, You must see spiting everything and everyone. That's something that they say. I heard it another way early on that said, If you have a prejudice against something, If you have a resentment towards something, You're at some point, You're going to have to deal with it. And what they, I think the person was talking about prejudice against like institutions like churches, The government, All that stuff too. But I mean, Mainly they were talking about prejudices against religions and people. It can apply to anything, But that's what they were talking about. So if you're a racist or you have a resentment towards a specific religion, Which is a group of people and how they do things, At some point you have to get beyond that if you expect to continue spiritually growing. Like maybe you don't have to do it day one, But there's going to come a time when you have to do it. You have to, If you don't, You're going to hit a spiritual ceiling. You're going to hit a ceiling of happiness, A ceiling of self-esteem, Self-love. Because at some point you can't think that a group of people are bad because they're different from you and be open to love. You can't embody both. You know what I mean? So this is why we need to get rid of judgment. And I mean, If you look at society and the way things are going, Of course we're not there yet. But if you look at the progress that's been made just in the last 60 years, Or well, The last 60 years, From like 1960 to like 2020, If you look at the progress that has been made with all around the world in different areas of prejudices, It's dramatic. I mean, Are we finished? No, No, We're not finished. But we have made dramatic strides in not only different races, But different genders, Different sexual preferences. A lot of this stuff has come into the forefront of society, And we've made tremendous strides in the last 60 years, As opposed to where we were. So if we are going to continue to grow into more happiness, Peace, Love, Then we have to continue dropping our judgments. So I think where I'm going to kind of start wrapping up is leaning into the aspect of assessment versus the judgment. So most of this has been about, In the beginning, A little bit about the difference. Most of the middle has been about judgment. And then I'm going to wrap up about assessments a little bit. Assessments are very healthy. You know, Like, I mean, If we do not learn from the past, We are doomed to repeat it. So assessing the past is highly effective. It's highly helpful. We must do it if we expect to live any type of functional, Happy life. We just need to take out the judgment. So what that looks like is looking at our past. I mean, I'll try to take, I imagine, I don't know what I'm going to say until it comes out. So I don't know if this is going to be a good example. But I'm thinking that my life, When I was out there drinking, Should hold lots of examples. You know, Like, I mean, There was lots of things I did. I was incapable of holding a steady job for a long period of time. I was incapable of being happy for a long period of time. I was incapable of being in a healthy relationship for a long period of time. I was, I could hold myself together for short periods of time and almost anything, You know. And I think that's how, What people might call functional. So I was somewhat functional. Like, I mean, You know, I could always get a job. I could hold myself together well enough to present myself in a way that I could acquire a job. You know, So I could do things, But most of, But it was temporary. So I couldn't hold on to things. I couldn't create anything long term. I would end up sabotaging it and destroying it because of my own lack of self-love. You know, If I don't love myself, How, Or have any faith in myself or trust in myself, And be able to function in life in a sustainable way, How could I create anything sustainable, You know? So I could create some things that were okay temporarily, But I could never sustain it. So that's not a life that I want. So I can look back on that and say, Okay, Well, A lack of self-esteem, A lack of self-love, Drinking alcohol, You know, For me, It wasn't, I either drank or I didn't. And I basically drank. You know, That doesn't mean I got, You know, Blown out of my mind every night. But I drank enough to affect the way I felt internally on a daily basis for many years. So when I look back at that, Now I can learn from that and go, Okay, Well, Drinking does not serve you well. Okay, Maybe I shouldn't do that. Good assessment. Not a judgment. Drinking isn't bad. This is something that people don't understand about me. They think like, Because I was an alcoholic, That like, I think drinking is bad. I don't think drinking is bad. I have no anger towards it. I have no resentment towards it. I don't think it's evil. I have no problem with other people drink. I don't care. It just doesn't work for me. That's an assessment. It's not a judgment. It doesn't enhance my life. It detracts from enhancing my life. So I don't, There's no judgment on alcohol. It's an assessment to my life. Should I have it in my life or should I not have it in my life? I determined through assessing the situation that I should not have it in my life. And I still have, I'm at the same assessment. So I still haven't drank. I just, It's funny, Yesterday I just had 18 years without a drink. Yay. And I haven't regretted it. The assessment's the same. So that's an assessment and I make an adjustment to my life based on that assessment. No judgment. This is what we need to do. Learn from our path. That person, I can't believe the way they treated me. They're a jerk. Ah, You just stepped into judgment. They're a jerk. Don't need it. Don't need to judge them as a jerk. Leave that piece out because that is resentment. That is poison inside of your body. It's poison inside of you. You will carry that around until you forgive them or let it go. You don't need it. So they, You, We have to understand we do not have to demonize something to not have it in our life. We think we have to prove something's bad. We have to come to a judgment that it's bad to put it out of our lives. We do not have to do that. We just have to assess it as not pleasurable, Not something I want to experience. That's it. I would rather not repeat this experience. This is not going well for me. I assessed that my life is going to be more the way that I want it if I don't have this piece in it. That's it. That could be alcohol. That can be meat if you're, If you're going vegetarian. It can be a relationship. It can be a person. It can be a family member. It can be a particular topic of conversation. I'm not going to talk about religion or politics. Good. Leave it out. Make it a rule. I've, I've had many arguments over political stances and it's not enhancing my life. What I'm going to do is I'm going to live my life from my particular assessment, What I feel is correct. I'm not going to judge it that I'm right and they're wrong. I'm just assessing what works for me. This just works for me. I'm going to implement it in my world and I'm not going to discuss it with other people because it's none of their business because it's not their life. And I don't have to be right. I don't, And they don't have to be wrong for me to live a particular way. You see how when we start stepping away from judgment, We start stepping into a more functional way of living. Can you imagine how much happier we would all be if we're living and we stop judging? That's one of the major problems in society. That's what's at the root of all this political unrest is one side trying to convince another side of something. Don't. Just take responsibility for your own life. Live the way you want to and pump more love into this world. Why? Because you're happy and you're living in love. That's it. That's what we need. We need more love in this world. Yes, You be it. You be it by stop arguing with people. Stop trying to convince them. Stop demonizing somebody that thinks differently than you. It's just their perspective and they have a right to it. Leave them alone. You know, But I might get sick. You might not. You might get hit by a car. You might stop putting the responsibility of your life on everybody else. You know, And this is I know people are going to read between the lines that kind of slanted in the frickin' COVID direction. And I'm not going to get into it deep, But I want to, Since I kind of inherently touched on it a little bit, I want to touch on the other side. You know, Like if I was discussing this online with somebody the other day, It's judgment. You know, People think that like taking the stand and picking the side to not wear a mask or not get the vaccine. I guess that's the big thing now. Is like, They're the non-vaccine side, So they have to argue with the vaccine side. Like, No, You don't. Leave them alone. Leave them alone. Stop judging them as bad or not having the same information that you have or like leave them alone. Because you're not going to change them anyway. Like it doesn't change anybody. Have you seen anything change? We've been arguing both sides of this topic for what, Two years now? Have you seen anybody change? No, They deeply root even further into their side. That's what they do. Leave them alone. Live your own life. Be happy. You know, If like just allow people to choose their own reality and worry about yours. Your life is your responsibility. Everybody else's life is not your responsibility. So take care of you. Learn to live non-judgmentally and see how happy you are. Experiment with it. Do it for three months. Do it for six months. See if you actually get happier. Do it for three weeks for Christ sakes. Anything but attempt it. And if it works for you, If it doesn't, Come back and talk to me. Email me. You know, I'll try to help because you must be missing something. But if it works for you, Continue doing it. If we have more happy people on this planet and more loving people and less judgment and less judgmental people and people that are just assessing what's right for them, We're going to get along better. And then if there is some, Let's just say for the sake of argument, Hypothetically, There is some group solution that we should all come together and think the same way on it. To actually absolve and make this, You know, Like we'll use the COVID. Let's just say if we all came together miraculously and looked at it the same way and then COVID would just disappear from the planet and everybody would be happy. Let's just say that's possible. It is impossible the way we are going about it. But we're still trying to get there, Supposedly. Even though we've seen no progress whatsoever in that direction. We still keep jamming a round peg into the square hole thinking somehow it's going to work. This is what I mean about society's ways not making sense. It doesn't work. We've been arguing for two freaking years and it doesn't work. It's shown that it doesn't work. And we keep arguing over it expecting a different result. It's insanity. Stop it. Stop arguing. Stop trying to control everybody. Stop judging everybody. Worry about yourself. Learn to stop judging. Learn to assess what brings you more joy, Love, Peace and happiness into your own life. Then you will be a beacon of love, Peace and happiness. Just all that alone, You get to walk through life happy. That's payment enough. But collectively, Now you're bringing more love into the world. Now all of a sudden you're creating more of a loving society. And if hypothetically at some point we could all come together as a society and view things the same way to resolve a problem, It would come out of that energy. Do you see? We have to, It would come out of that energy first. We need to be in a loving energy and love one another and get along with one another and give a shit about one another first. And then maybe we can come together as a group. But right now we hate each other and we argue with each other and we point fingers at each other and we judge each other and we put each other down and then we wonder why we can't come together as a unified group. You don't know why we can't come together as a unified group? That's why. Because you treat each other with hatred and judgment constantly in every area of life. And you wonder why we can't come together. We have to stop putting the cart before the horse. What we need to do is work on ourselves, Create a loving environment and then the problems that we have will drift right away. The solutions are right there. We have solutions to all the problems. We have solutions to every single one of them and none of them are being implemented. We could be wiping out all wars. We could be wiping out all world hunger. We could be wiping out all racism. We could be wiping out, You name it, We could be wiping it out. The reason we're not is because we're busy arguing. How do we argue? Well, We have to judge first. Judgment is a block to love. You can't bring love into a situation where there's judgment. And I believe that's it. I believe that's it. I believe that's all I got. Buddy, Buddy, Thank you for joining. God nahay. Wicked cool. Laura, Awesome sauce. And Janice, Congratulations. I believe I saw that pop through when I mentioned that I had 18 years yesterday. Thank you very much. You know, Now it kind of marks the beginning of my spiritual journey because am I happy to be sober? Of course I'm happy to be sober. But it's a non-issue. I don't try to stay sober every day. I go years without even thinking it. Like because it's a non-issue. It marks the launch of the rest of my life. And the rest of my life is spiritual, Happy, Peaceful. Not always. I have my time. But for me, It's more about like not drinking is such a non-issue. It's just not even on my radar anymore. And it hasn't been for many years. So it's like, You know, I think we have to remember, Or at least I needed to remember, You know, Each I'm not going to judge. Each path is different. Some people need to keep that in the forefront of their mind. And if that's your case, God bless you. Do it. Because not drinking is huge or drugging, You know. So God bless you. But entertain the possibility. Play around with things. Find out what's right for you. What turned out what was right for me is that I didn't get sober to sit in a church basement and go to meetings seven days a week. Didn't work for me. I got sober because I wanted to have freedom. Freedom from something controlling me. Freedom from me sabotaging my own life. Freedom to create the life that I wanted. You know, And now I have that. I've recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body, Which is states in recovery. I've recovered past tense. So now if I took a drink today, Would I go on a bender and not be able to stop drinking? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe I'm still an alcoholic in that way. I guess I probably wouldn't know until I picked up a drink for sure. It's theoretical until that happens. And I really like my life, So there's no reason for me to experiment with something that was very detrimental to my past. So I have no intention of doing it. But I didn't stop drinking just to be sober. I stopped drinking so I could have a chance at a happy life. And that's my focus now. That's why my spirituality and my happiness and my peace and my love is the most important thing. Because if I'm not walking through life experiencing those feelings on a regular basis, Then why did I get sober? Did I stop drinking so I could be miserable and not have a drink? To me, That's useless. It's a waste of time. I'm an extremist, So it's all or nothing, Man. I'm not going to go through the work to get sober to be unhappy and sober. Again, I have my unhappy moments. I have my unhappy times. I have my ups and downs. That's not what I'm saying. Not 24-7 always. But my main goal is to live a productive, Happy, Loving, Joyful life, Existence. And that's an ongoing process. August 1st marks the beginning of that for me. AA was a big part for the first 7 or 8 years. AA saved my life. My son saved my life. There were parts put in place that saved my life at that moment and started this journey. So I'll be forever grateful and ever respectful for it. But it doesn't mean that I can't transcend it. So it's the mark for me of my spiritual journey. And I'm very grateful to be without a drink for 18 years. But I'm even more grateful for the peace, The love and the happiness that I found during those 18 years. And that's the journey I will continue to put energy towards. I don't have to put energy towards fighting alcohol. We must cease fighting everything and everyone. Remember I said that earlier? I must cease fighting alcohol as well. So if you're fighting against alcohol, You haven't hit that level of recovery yet. That level of recovery is transcendence where it's not an issue anymore. And it even says this in the big book. This is not Glenn making this stuff up. This is the founders of AA that said this. Because I taught that big book for years to a lot of people. Right? Right Lisa? I see Lisa on there. And Laura. I've taught this to a lot of people in that area when I was living in Rhode Island. So they're all aware of it. So we must cease fighting everything and everyone. And it says in the big book, If you have to fight against alcohol or you have to avoid alcohol, There's something wrong with your recovery. It says that. Because you can end up in the North Pole isolating yourself away from alcohol. And an Eskimo is going to show up with a bottle of whiskey. Recovery is not isolating yourself from something or fighting against it. It's transcending it, Getting it to the place where it's a non-issue. You know, So if you haven't reached that point in your recovery yet, Know that you can and shoot for that. I recommend the 12 Steps because that's what I've seen work for me and many other people. If you can find another way, God bless you. So, Awesome sauce for my anniversary. Thank you, Laura. Holy crap. Congratulations. Thank you, Lisa. Yes. And Janice, I'm glad you're loving the podcast. You know, Guys is, You know, I think 200 of them out there. So if you haven't listened to them, Go listen to them. There's tons of them on YouTube that you can watch. But you can listen to them just about wherever they are. Insight Time are included. But all the platforms, You know, Wherever you listen to stuff, I'm probably on there. So check it out. All right. Thank you, Everybody. This has been fun. So I will continue doing it because I'm still enjoying it. So thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Thank you for participating. I appreciate it. And peace out. If I click the right button. OK, Now.