40+FAB Blog

A moment cannot really be judged justly without actually gathering facts about the series of events that led up to that moment. You have probably had the unfortunate situation of being judged in a moment where you appeared to be doing something that made you look guilty, and maybe you have also judged others who were in similar circumstances.

The other day my wife left me to take care of our daughter. After about an hour, I changed her nappy and as I was disposing of the used nappy, my wife walked in to find my daughter all alone. I was judged in that moment, but by the time she heard the context of what had been happening for the last hour, I was exonerated from the judgement.

This is one of the reasons why so much time, money and effort is expended by our judicial systems to ensure that citizens are not judged for the moment they were caught in an incident which has a penalty. We must never judge on the basis of a snapshot that we have, but we must take more robust approaches to understand what led to the actual moment. Doing this will save us from making assumptions that could hurt others and in turn hurt us.