Too much of our days are filled with thoughts on how we think others might perceive us and our appearance at any given moment. It really is obvious that this is a problem in our society’s youth, and even with our society’s adults, yet no one stops to talk about how our lives are becoming more and more dependent on judgments. What a scary thought. How the outcome of your day could possibly be determined by how someone treats you in line at Starbucks that morning.

Judgment is an unsavory and unnecessary epidemic. Using the word epidemic might seem a bit excessive, but it really is called for. Merriam Webster Dictionary describes an epidemic as a contagious, excessively prevalent, and drastically affecting issue with widespread growth. So I stand correct.

Judgment is contagious. You pass a negative, uncalled comment towards another person and everyone around you starts to think the same. Judgment is excessively prevalent. It’s everywhere. Judgment is in the way you think, the way you act, the way your brain is trained to perceive any images, it’s even in the way we base our own actions. Judgment is drastically affecting. There are three ways people deal with other’s views. They think about it then shake it off, they keep quiet while unknowingly letting it build into something irreversible, or they retaliate with equal or greater force. All are bad and all are preventable. Lastly, judgment has widespread growth. Like its degree of contagion, judgment spreads. The only separating factor from this same issue is that with today’s power of media the caliber of growth in anything is grand and instantaneous. Judgment is unjust and detrimental, wide spread growth of judgment is just that much worse.

The solution to this unsavory epidemic of unnecessary judgment could quite possibly be to just let things go. But sometimes letting go just isn’t enough. If any of us want a changed world, let alone a better day, we are going to have to meet each other halfway. We need to be sure that when things are instigated or situations provoked that we both react and reciprocate with more calm and positively driven comments and actions.

The next time you start to say or do something the slightest bit negative towards someone or something else just remember, the only negativity deserved in the world is none. Our greatest enemies and our greatest friends deserve respect no matter how we chose to classify them.