Money, Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged

One of my biggest gripes especially today is the judgment of the finances of others. Many judge the rich, and many judge the poor. Honestly, in my life time I had friends who made significantly less salary, but were much better with their money and those friends who made more money but were financial knuckleheads. I for one, never judged another’s handling of their finances. It was and is their business and none of mine. But in today’s economic climate many find pride in their finances, handling of credit , savings and blah, blah, blah and use as a s sense of pride to criticize others who struggle. This pride does no one any good.

One of the reasons I don’t judge is because I don’t see money being a human quality. I don’t judge someone by the money they have in the bank, I judge them by the quality of their character. Money is a piece of paper that signifies a monetary value, but it doesn’t suggest how you earned that money. I’m sure many feel the same but we get caught up in the stereotypes; rich people are greedy and poor people are lazy when neither have to be true. Some rich people are very lazy and some poor people work very hard for their money, therefore impossible to judge.
It is impossible to judge another on the finances and money without knowing anything about them. Rule number one, living expenses differ immensely from one part of the country to another. Living in Topeka, Kansas costs significantly less than New York City, therefore it is impossible to place judgment without knowing where they live. Secondly, you can’t judge another without knowing all their bills, mortgages, credit card bills, school loans, hospital bills and the list continues.

I think this has greater impact with what is happening in the country, as there seems to be budding class struggle. I have read one man’s judgment on a family who doesn’t have any credit cards and lives truly on what they earn. I have read articles where reporters blame average American’s for the credit crisis and well, no one can help blame the corporate managers at AIG.

So many quick to promote values, values of having money, the value of not having mone. Perhaps we simply have too much value for money. Maybe we should shift our value to people and understand that we are all different, have different goals, desires and dreams for living. Just bear in mind, judging another person is in itself an unbecoming characteristic, judge not lest ye be judged.