A Lack of Mindfulness and Superficial Judgment of Others: Problems Which Plague Humanity

It is worth stopping for a moment to think about our contact with others, but also with ourselves. How much time does it take for us to have good social relations, and how much time do we spend on exploring ourselves? Most often it happens that the more we get involved in the lives of others, the more we run away from ourselves. This escape is dictated by various reasons. We may have a problem that needs to be dealt with or worked through, as it is said recently. But why delve into it when one can address the problems or misfortunes of others? The problems of others hurt us less, because they do not affect us personally and we do not experience them so deeply. Maybe we even sympathize with someone by showing support, although deep down we pityingly downplay the problem that seems to us inflated and unnecessarily exaggerated.

Running Away From Ourselves

We always run away – as far as possible – from our problems. The same applies to dutifulness. If we have to do a commissioned piece of work, which, moreover, is not in line with our interests, most of us postpone its execution to the farthest possible date. Or, on the contrary, we want to do it as soon as possible to get this task over and done with. But will this approach make us put our heart into the completion of this work, or will we be accurate and dedicated to it? No. We will simply do it as quickly and as best as possible, which does not mean that we could not do it more accurately and precisely.

Superficiality is to blame for everything. It lies right next to laziness, up on the shelf with human inadequacies.

Superficial Judgment of Others = Harm

According to the definition that can be found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, superficiality is an approach of a person who is concerned only with what is obvious or apparent. By judging someone superficially, we do not explore their character traits or experiences that may have influenced the current attitude toward life that the person represents. When being in a group of friends and meeting someone new who is reticent, we think: “But this young man is a boor. He does not speak as if he was tongue-tied. He probably thinks he’s better than us.” Meanwhile, this young man is going through a divorce, which he is broken down by, and it is for this reason that our mutual friend invited him to a meeting to break away, at least for a moment, from his personal problems. Without knowing the reasons for someone’s behavior, we can easily judge them in a way that is hurtful to them.

We all know that one should not judge a book by its cover, because it is a superficial assessment. Unfortunately, many of us are not faithful to this principle. We are more and more superficial not only in issuing judgments but also in various daily activities, which we explain by a simple lack of time. We don’t like to explore the subject, we don’t want to spend hours analyzing something that can be assessed at first glance, or at least that’s what we think.

Life Is Impossible Without a Little Superficiality…

We learn superficiality early on at school, when, instead of reading a book, we prefer to rely on a summary, because in this way we save time. We do not even realize that in this way, instead of developing the ability to evaluate the book ourselves, we adopt the assessment given by someone else. We permit ourselves to do so, explaining it by the lack of time and the small social harmfulness of such a misdeed.

The problem begins when we transfer the superficiality to much more strategic and important areas of our lives. Let’s think about what would happen, and, after all, we often hear in the news that such abuses occur, if, for example, a doctor or a lawyer treats our problem superficially. On the other hand, it is impossible to live through a life without a bit of superficiality, but it is important to be aware of the limit of abuse.

A good example of the superficiality that accompanies us in everyday life is a chat, now called small talk. What is small talk? It’s nothing more than a casual conversation about nothing in particular. Nothing important, let’s add. During a chat with a person we have just met or who has not been seen for a long time, we talk about neutral matters that concern everyone and no one to sense whether there is a ground to explore the topic or whether it is better to let it go. In such situations, it is safest to talk about the weather, which is always there, or about the prices which are always too high. Such a conversation is extremely superficial, but in this case, that is the point.

Lack of Mindfulness for Others

However, even during such an initial exchange of opinions, one should show interest in the interlocutor and not ignore them, because this may work to our disadvantage in further relations with our interlocutor. Unfortunately, more and more often, at this stage of our relations with other people, we approach the subject superficially. Often, during such a conversation, not only do we hold a phone in our hands, which is a sign of disrespect, but we often look at it, even not hiding it very much. If our smartphone contains information more interesting than our interlocutor, what is the purpose of initiating a dialogue at all? The lack of mindfulness of the other human, the lack of listening to what they say to us, is a very common problem today. We live in a time of pretending. Not only do we pretend that we listen, but we have also specialized in pretending that a topic that does not interest us at all is interesting to us. All this to endear oneself to the interlocutor. And this is also a symptom of superficiality because we are not interested in sincere relations, but in achieving the goal.

We Live Too Fast

Each of us is an explorer, a little Robinson, who breaks through the jungle of everyday life. We live fast and hence the common impression of time running out. Since we have so little of it, we cannot waste it. Superficiality seems to be an excellent tool here. However, this is a vicious cycle that eventually leads to frustration. Because we are not satisfied with the results of our work, with the social life we have, and with the friends we have chosen at random – it is not strange that we now feel their insincerity.

We are also increasingly asking ourselves who we are and where our lives are going. New yoga centers and meditation clubs are springing up like mushrooms. There is a growing number of people willing to explore the secrets of the difficult art of mindfulness. Focus and attention are the opposite of superficiality. As we explore the moment, we explore eternity. In the end, the earth was formed from an incalculable amount of grains of sand. In the same way, moments create hours, days and years.

By paying attention to others, we also paradoxically turn to ourselves. By treating others and ourselves deeply and with respect, and not superficially, we show respect above all to ourselves. This is a very good starting point.