Before Criticizing Anyone Put Yourself Into His Or Her Shoes (Essay Sample)

Before criticizing anyone put yourself into his or her shoes

We live in a patriarchal society where people are always judgmental; people are always quick to judge based on what they see without thinking twice if they are wrong. The society harshly judges people who do not conform the common norms without trying to make an effort to know the reason behind their actions. We do not attempt to walk a mile in people’s shoes before criticizing them for not abiding by the social norms. Before criticizing anyone put yourself into their shoes, this means do not judge anyone until you have to know what he is going through.

Imagine yourself being in someone’s position; you will find yourself making a similar decision. Therefore, you will see thing from their perspective, hence it becomes difficult to criticize others when you are in the same spot. The saying reminds us that we cannot know what it is like to live in someone else’s life until we understand from her point of view. We cannot know exactly what someone is going through since many people keep their private life and experience away from the public, especially when things are not going as expected.

However, many of us are quick to judge them by the look of things or what other people might be saying. In most cases, people criticize others when their ideologies do not match, but no matter what you think, you know about a person, if you have not heard the story from them you cannot know, their daily struggles. Walking in someone else’s shoes reminds us not to assume that you have any idea where they are coming from or how they feel unless you have gone through the similar experience in the same way.

Analyzing this saying deeply means we cannot become somebody else by perceiving things the same way. Even if one tries to explain the situation, most of us cannot understand their situation unless we had the same experience. By not judging, someone means understanding other people’s feelings without experiencing them yourself and empathizing with him instead of criticizing him. Putting yourself in someone’s shoes means understanding the world from another person’s perspective by walking in their shoes and viewing his situation from a new perspective in order to feel what the person is going through.

The first impression always has a lasting impact on how we think about a person; we are always quick to make conclusions based on what we see. We do not think much about the underlying causes of the person problems. Before judging anyone, you need to think deeply and ask yourself how well you know the person and if you know his background to criticize him.  If you cannot understand what a person goes through every day and relate to them, then you cannot understand someone’s actions, you need to analyze the situation from the person viewpoint without being biased.

Unless you experience the same situation as the person did, then you are not in a better position to criticize the person. Before you judge someone based on his looks, his characters or his clothes we need to know that it is not by choice, but there are several reasons behind what we see. That is why we should never criticize anyone until we have been in the same place or gone through the same experience. I agree with Harper Lee who states that “You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

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