At any rate, your contempt for your fellow human beings does not prevent you, with a well-guarded self-respect, from trying to win their respect. – Dag Hammarskjold
I’ve managed to bequeath some of my lifelong judgmental attitude about others to my children, and to one son in particular. We talked about it at lunch today, as he’s starting to see how it’s affecting his life in various ways. I didn’t have any particular wisdom to impart to him, and I don’t have any in mind as I start to write this Joe to Go.
When was I last aware of my judging someone else? Yesterday, when I ran into a retired guy I knew only vaguely from his letters to the editor. He’s extremely overweight, and I’ve always imagined him to be the epitome of an entrenched bureaucrat, though I don’t actually know this to be true, now that I think about it. Is it just because of his profession? Or is it his weight?
He was very outgoing towards me and my daughter, and I responded in kind. But I think I still walked away harboring some judgmentalness.
As I think about the Hammarskjold quote, it’s evidently very important for me to be seen as trim and fit, just like it was for my dad. And it’s evidently also very important for me to be seen as a nimble, change-embracing entrepreneur, not some paper-pushing, stuck-in-the-mud middle manager. And at some level, I must think I’m not lovable as is. Goofy thinking, but there it is. Maybe it would be good for me to develop a pot-belly and get a ho- hum job in the bowels of a huge and faceless corporation.