Some questions you are never prepared for and this was one of those. I had just been talking and joking with a friend about their incredibly persuasive abilities, which could be quite powerful and devastating if used for evil instead of good. “That is your dark side.” I said.

We laughed. Then he flipped it on me, “What’s your dark side?”

“Damn it, what a jerk!” I thought.

But I sat with it for a minute and answered, “I can be pretty judgmental”. It hurt to admit because I pride myself on treating all people the same, no matter who they are, because I would hope that they do the same to me.

I am naturally curious and that generally gives me a pretty good read on people, fairly quickly, and so I think I get a good understanding of part of who they are and what motivates them. When I’m at my best, I have a very generous sense of their journey and their person. When I’m not at my best I can find myself writing people off because of who I perceive they are. I hate that part of me, but it’s my dark side, it makes sense that I don’t love it.

I have found that when I drift in to being super judgmental, I have stopped being curious about that person, I think I fully understand who they are with no possibility that there is something else that I could learn about them, or that they couldn’t surprise me.

As Les Parrot said, “Curiosity is the on ramp to empathy and empathy changes everything”

It’s impossible to be curious and judgmental at the same time.

So, I keep aiming for curiosity.