The following is an entry from my blog, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Let me tell you a story that you may be familiar with. You’re in your car driving towards a stoplight, and it turns red as you approach. You slow down and stop. No big deal. But suddenly a car in the adjacent lane whizzes past you and runs the red light. He didn’t even slow down. You get mad, call him a dumb-ass or some other rude name, tell him that he has no regard for people’s safety, or maybe even say that you hope he gets into a crash. Does this situation sound familiar to you? Most likely you or at least someone you know has displayed such road rage, if not worse. I’m not a saint; I’ve gotten mad at people on the road before, but I stop once I realize how ignorant I’m being. Once I realize how quickly I am judging this person. I try to see the best in people, and to remember that every single person is worthy of respect, or at least sympathy.

First, what’s ironic is that he’s in his car and you are in yours. He can’t hear a word you’re saying. But maybe that’s the reason you said all those mean things. Nonetheless, what good does it do you to yell at him and pass him off as a stupid buttface, other than to possibly vent your anger?

I often see people people such as my parents and friends getting mad at drivers and calling them names. I call them out on it, and I’ll explain why soon. But road rage is a perfect example of what I want to discuss, which is when people are quick to make judgements of others. You see, if people judge others as frequently as I’ve observed, then they must be doing it even more often, because I’m not always observing. If they quickly judge people inside the safety of their car, they must also do it in the safety of their minds, and among their friends, outside the context of driving.

Let’s go back to the guy that ran the stoplight. He’s an idiot, right? Well, perhaps not. Think of it like this: What if there was some emergency that you didn’t know about? What if he was on his way to the hospital to see his mother who’d just had a heart attack? What if he desperately needed to get home to take his insulin injection? Or, more simply, what if his child in the back seat had distracted him somehow?

These things don’t make him an idiot. He probably had his reasons for running the red light. But you didn’t know what they were, so you made up your own reason when you labeled him as stupid. Had you been able to ask him, he would have offered you an explanation of why he ran the light. Should he have ran the right? Was it the right thing to do? Those are different questions. Regardless of if he should or should not have done it, the point is that he had reasons (which most of the time you do not know) behind his behavior and “he is an idiot” is usually not among those reasons.

I’d also like to extend this mode of thought to celebrities, who seem to get judged very easily, especially with the way the media portrays their activities.

First of all, I don’t completely understand the appeal of celebrity gossip. Second, I’m not all that sure that it can be trusted. They only give us what we want to hear. They don’t always give us the whole story, and they don’t always know the whole story.

It took me less than twenty seconds online to discover information about Bradley Cooper’s romantic life, or that Kelly Clarkson was having a baby girl. I didn’t even know she was pregnant, and honestly I don’t really care. You call this news? This is what the people of our nation care about? And then you have all the scandals and affairs of politicians and other celebrities; things that blow up in a fireball of controversy and criticism. These things don’t matter. Now I can hear you saying “But David, it matters to me! I gotta keep up with my favorite celebrities! “ If that was you, then consider this a call to action: If you think that you really get enjoyment from learning about the personal lives of celebrities, what on Earth are you doing? This is not what life is about, so don’t waste your time with it. Find something meaningful to you to do with your life. I’m not trying to hate on you so you don’t need to get defensive, I’m only trying to get you out of the funk you’re in. Find something that gives you pleasure. I’m not talking about the short-term pleasure that comes from eating a pint of ice cream and/or hooking up with someone. These pleasures are not self-sustaining; the happiness is over once it’s done. So once again, find something that gives meaning to your life.

Naturally, this is where you might expect me to introduce you to Jesus and tell you how he can fulfill all of your inner desires. But that’s not the reason  I’m here, and I’m not the man for that job. For me, the thing that gives me meaning is the earth. Earth and all the glorious life she supports. I care about the earth, and I was hurt and concerned to discover that she was being abused. I care about all the different types of animals on the planet. I was fascinated by animals at an early age. I see how beautiful and majestic they are. There’s so many of them and they are so fascinating. My favorites are the mammals. They are soft and warm, and sometimes it seems like they understand my feelings. Taking care of these animals and the earth that they live on gives meaning to my life, and that is why I am studying for a degree in environmental science. If you’ve ever asked me why I chose environmental science, there is your answer.

So I know I got on a bit of a rant just there, so let’s get back to what we were talking about. It bugs me when people ignorantly criticize others, including celebrities. It must be difficult to be a celebrity. They hardly get any privacy, and any time they make a mistake or do something stupid, the whole world is there to give them shit for it. Many politicians have to undergo rigorous background checks where every single thing they’ve ever done wrong is criticized. Why do we expect perfection from these people? What if I wrote down every single mistake that you’ve made, and then judged you for each of them? Meanwhile thousands of people  on forums are gossiping about all those things that you did. You wouldn’t like that. Nobody would. Next time someone slips up and says something they shouldn’t have, just give him/her a break. I was going to talk about criminals, but I think the same applies to them as when I was talking about celebrities and I think you can make the connection. Criminals can often become their own kind of celebrity, the infamous kind.They get criticism just like the other celebrities do. You don’t know why they did the things they did, so don’t be so quick to judge. In conclusion: everyone makes mistakes, so it’s not fair to expose and criticize someone else’s flaws while you hide your own. Practice forgiving people, and your interactions with them will be much less hostile.