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“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
Luke 6:37 NIV
Marcus Aurelius advised the following: “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.” You will probably not be disappointed, and some of the surliness and bad behavior will probably be your own. We are all flawed and imperfect. Epictetus advised his followers, upon hearing that someone had criticized them, to say “He was ignorant of my other faults, otherwise he would not have mentioned only these.” When we expect less than perfect behavior from others it is a lot easier to love them, and to feel compassion for their faults and weaknesses. Having compassion as our default attitude is far better than constantly judging others, which is likely to make us irritable and difficult to be around. Cutting others some slack is one of the easiest things we can do, and because we are going to need others to cut us some slack, it is best to not hold others to an unrealistic standard of behavior. One of the ways in which we “cut others some slack” is by being quick to forgive and forgiving easily and often.
– Christopher Simon
