Purpose Not Judgment

On one of his tape series, Wayne Dyer suggests that we “get out of judgment and onto purpose”.

I started thinking about this the other day and noticed something that really surprised me. I had no idea how much of the time my thoughts are making judgment.

I would look at a person and think that they were ugly or pretty (judgment). Look at a car, a house, a building, a sign and think good or bad (judgment).

The more that I thought about it, almost every thought that I had was a judgment. A comparison of an item to my idea of right and placing that item on my spectrum is a judgment.

Try this for a day, keep track of how many times you look at something or someone and make a judgment. If is is a quick mental comparison, you are judging that item against your mental scorecard.

So, how do we stop this? One way is to have a purpose.

For me, I have taken a line out of the preamble of Alcoholics Anonymous that is read before every meeting. This line states that “our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics stay sober”. So, I work to stay on this purpose and help others.

One result of this is that I am not in judgment as much. When I am concentrating on my purpose, I have a direction and am not just sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

I hear a lot of people asking how they can be happy. One way is to select a purpose and spend part of your day working toward its accomplishment.

And, purpose and goal are two different things. To me, a goal is a task that one is attempting to accomplish. But a purpose is a guideline that will be applied to their life.

If we are just floating thru life with nothing to guide us, we will be like the proverbial “cork on the water”, being pushed this way and that by every wave or breath of wind.

Life is as good as I allow it to be.