I once heard John Ortberg say that many of us go through life as if we're movie critics: we evaluate everything -- and everyone -- around us and decide whether to give it the thumbs up or the thumbs down. Happy people don't do this. Living in judgment mode alienates and isolates us from other people ... but it's also a strategy to make us miserable.

One of the peculiarities of human nature is that we tend to focus on the negative. We focus on dangers and threats rather than the blessings, and we focus on problems and things we don't like about other people rather than on their good qualities. This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective: the more tuned in one is to dangers and threats, the more likely they are to survive. But it won't make them happy.

But there's another reason why our tendency to judge is problematic: we're really bad at it. We don't know whether something is really a blessing or a curse. We don't know how things will turn out, and sometimes the things we think are great blessings wind up creating huge problems. Other things that seem terrible at the time turn out to be some of the best things that happened to us.

Many of us struggle with anxiety and stress. We stress out about things are happening, and worry about things that might happen. Let this idea percolate: we don't really know how things will turn out anyway, so even if the result we REALLY wanted actually comes to pass, it may not be all that great. And if something happens that we REALLY fear, it might turn out to be not such a bad thing after all. 

The late Alan Watts was a writer and speaker who came to prominence in the late 60s. An English Episcopal priest, he left his ministry position to write and speak, and became somewhat of an expert in Eastern philosophy. You can still find his books in print, and his talks on YouTube and in various podcasts. (Brace yourself if you don't like to hear critiques of Christian teaching though. Fundamentalists and Evangelicals might rather take a pass.)

I mention Watts because he tells a great and important Taoist story ... one that all of us would do well to remember. From here on out I'm quoting Maria Popova, who profiled Watts in one of her "Brain Pickings" emails: