Prejudices are restrictions

Do you know that moment when you think…
“Wait, that person shouldn’t have said that—that’s not okay or acceptable”?

In my daily life, wherever I go and move about, I notice my own judgments and how certain things about people—their appearance, the way they dress, the way they walk, something they do, say, or don’t say—touch something in me and I judge them in some way.

I allow myself to feel and truly look at what it is I’m judging in order to understand myself better and see how it reflects something within me.

For example, I may have ideas about what is proper or improper behavior.
What can I allow myself to do, and what is irresponsible or immoral?

At times, it seems like a struggle to want what is right and true, to be committed to making the right decisions—because the fear of failing can be overwhelming.

Where is the line between healthy discipline and a rigid mind? Between making good moral choices and destructive, impulsive urges?
Maybe the lines aren’t always clear, and that’s why it could be said that making mistakes is human—and unavoidable.

Prejudice and restriction are things I enjoy reflecting on.

What I judge in others often doesn’t align with how I see myself or how I want others to see me.
What doesn’t fit with my self-image becomes, in some way, a threat—something that could break that image apart.
But perhaps even more important is the disappointment I would feel toward myself—realizing that this image wasn’t real or true, and that I was so much more than it.

But if I’m not what I judge in others—or in myself—if I’m not who others think I am, or who I think I am…
Then who am I? Who are you? Who are we?

That question seems almost to leave a quiet emptiness in thought…
Who am I really, if I’m not my name, my job, my family, my relationship, or my career?

There is a kind of pain in these restrictions—a longing to break free from these identities and discover a greater Identity and Self that is not bound to anything here.