“Hello mum, please pick me up in town or send someone to pick me as my bags are too heavy for me to carry home. We arrive at 2pm.”, said my new friend Grace as she completed the call with her mother. Standing barely a metre away from her with heavier bags, you could see the mental side-eye our mothers give us in distaste. How could this budding youth full of energy not carry two bags home? ‘Must be one of the lazy ones,’ I shrugged. The conversations I was having with myself were only of violence. Shaking my head, judging them and going ahead to conclude, “Watoto wa Nairobi, wacha tu!”

This went on to me imagining making such a call to my mum asking her to pick me up because I was heavy laden and the thought itself made my mind hurt because there was no way this could ever happen. This encounter brought back memories of one time when I was visiting my aunt and didn’t know where she lived. After alighting at the stage, I made a call to my mum asking for directions to my aunt’s house standing next to a bodaboda guy, you know the kind. She was all chipper when I arrived but the moment I mentioned that I had planned to board a motorcycle, she retorted with strict directions of a walk from one point to another and called once I’m at a particular place so she could go ahead and give me further directions. My cries of having a heavy bag on my back went unattended as I walked and manoeuvred some dusty roads under the scorching sun.

We are a product of our environment. Being as it may, we remain very judgemental as human beings. We are always judging each other whether for or against them. We can’t help ourselves. The truth is we may snap out of the judgements sometime later but the talk of first impressions last is all about judging someone as soon as we meet them. Without knowing the whole story, we jump into conclusions and even after we know the story, we go ahead and point out where the doer of deeds could have acted differently. Hardly do we consider the fact that not being on the scene, we cannot understand the factors that led someone to make a certain decision. Being products of our environments, we judge people through the lens of where we grew up, how we grew up and the beliefs instilled in us by our parents and the society in our upbringing.

Mental health talks and awareness have shed light on such biases as we are becoming more aware of the pressures of the world and the different states of the mind. On socials, it is common to hear quotes like, “Don’t be so quick to judge, you never know when you might just find yourself walking in that person’s shoes.” What then do we do when our first instinct is to judge but not keep an open mind?

Seated on the train on our way back to Nairobi, Grace shared that she had a serious back injury and even the least strain could harm her back and render her bedridden for weeks. Yes, I wish I could take the shrug, the sneer and the judgement back but it had already happened; The judge, jury and attorneys had closed the case. Yes, I felt awful. At this point, I almost offered to take her home. Had I voiced my concerns and asked her why she needed someone to help her with her bags, neither could I be reprimanding myself nor could I judge her so harshly.

How many people have you judged not knowing the whole story? And even after getting the whole story, did you listen with an open mind or did you go ahead to give unsolicited advice on how they could have acted differently?

Today I urge you to UN-JUDGE SOMEONE!

Ruth Kimani ♥️♥️♥️