Stop Judging, Criticising and Complaining: A Lesson

          Beach in Tobago via Wikipedia

We all have to stop judging, criticising and complaining and that starts with me. Here are two stories to illustrate lessons to be learned.

A Man and His Cat

I remember reading many, many years ago a story about a man and his cat in one of James Herriot's stories about his life as a country vet in England in the sixties, I believe (don't quote me). It went like this:

There was this big, brawny guy who was gruff and habitually terse to everyone in the village which they all took as rudeness. He was a good worker but people were afraid of him because of his size and demeanor, and he had this pet cat (don't remember it's name) which he carried to Mr Herriot's clinic regularly for checkups.

As Mr Herriot told it, he also kept the man at arms length which of course, increased the man's defensive persona.

Tough Guy's Tears

One day, Mr Tough Guy came to Herriot in tears – try to picture this six-foot plus unshaven bruiser – with his cat lying limp in his arms. The vet was shocked to see human-like qualities in this creature for whom he had disdain in his heart.

The cat was dead; it had been poisoned by someone in the village who did not like Mr Tough Guy (he did not fit in which made the person fearful). The man's cat was his only friend!

And it's at that moment that, according to Mr Herriot, he realised that he too had been judging the man unfairly based on what others said about him. 


A Lesson: These People are So Primitive

Regular blog readers know that I'm now based in the southern Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago to be precise, and I have been experiencing frustrating times with Internet and Wi-Fi access.

Nothing was going right. Returning here after eighteen years in Europe was a shock and things weren't working as I thought they should.

From the inefficiencies I encountered in various places to a simple wifi connection. The system kept crashing repeatedly. So, although knowing better, I was whining and constantly complaining and bitterly criticising all and sundry about it, and my favourite phrase was "these people are so primitive".

Hey, I say what I think man. Get with the programme, I expect effiiciency and courtesy, so do your damn job which is to assist me; I am the client after all.


The Outcome of my Thoughts
Six days ago, I pulled the posts I had for automatic postings on my blog to tweak them a bit when logic dictated I should have done it one at a time considering my spotty Internet connection. Guess what happened?

The entire system crashed and I had no Internet access for six days! So, I'm using a neighbour's system to upload some posts now.

In addition to which I also discovered that it wasn't the entire system at fault. It was a missing part which was creating the two-month long problem.

Lessons learned

Stop judging, criticising and complaining because you will get more of what you don't want. I firmly believe that developing this new attitude is part and parcel of everyday spirituality.

Go ahead and empower yourself by taking Dr Cara Barker's 21-Day Challenge to Stop Complaining, Criticising and Gossiping. It's at the bottom of this very interesting article she wrote. It will do you the world of good as it's doing for me.

Much love to y'all.