Judgement Day

During the past week or so, two of my girlfriends asked me to "not judge them" while telling me of a decision they had just taken.

Friend #1 has decided to have some minor plastic surgery done. An Aside: Why do we call it plastic surgery, her surgery involved zero plastic (and zero saline or silicone for that matter -- for those of you who automatically thought she had a boob job). En tout cas, this friend of mine has gone through a lot of self-improvement (I hate this word) over the past couple of years, after ending a marriage that wasn't all that bad, but more importantly, wasn't all that great. She has grown and matured a lot, and I am very proud of her.

Friend #2 has decided to have a little bit of fun, while on vacation somewhere hot where the men speak spanish. Sounds like a good place to have fun, if you were to ask me. This friend of mine has also gone through a lot of self-improvement (did I mention that I hate this word?) over the past couple of years, after letting go of a would-be marriage that wasn't going to be all that bad, but more importantly wasn't going to be all that great. She has grown and matured a lot, and I am very proud of her.

Both of these women decided to tell only a few select friends of their recent decisions, in fear of being judged. This is the reason for writing this post.

Why do we sometimes judge our friends and make them feel bad for decisions they have taken? Why do we feel that we need to give our two cents, when our friends are actually rich enough? So what if we wouldn't make the same decisions? Nobody asked us to. We are all different people, at different places in our lives. We all have our scars, many of which we hide from each other, and we all have different needs and vices. We need to respect that.

So, here is my interpretation of why these two friends have taken their respective decisions:

• Friend #1: She changed something about her outside-self as a symbol of all of the positive changes she has made to her inside-self. Now, she can physically see an improvement, to validate all that she could only feel. We have five senses, why not use them all?
• Friend #2: She is a serial monogamer at heart, she wants the husband and 2.5 kids -- and she will be great at it. She has had some hopes of that life fade even though she tried very hard to maintain total control and play by the rules. What she was doing was not working, so maybe she needed to let go and play by no rules in order to gain some control. She is alive and young, so why not live a little?
  

I think that we should always try to 'be there' for our friends when they want us to 'be there', and sometimes 'being there' means just listening and smiling...

...and reminding them "no glove, no love"...safety first! :-)