The world is a very complex place and since everything is connected to something else, you might only be seeing the tip of the iceberg when you make snap judgement. Sympathy is seeing somebody in a hole and saying sorry in the hole. Empathy is actually knowing what it feels like to be in the hole with the other person. There could be a lot of different reasons why a person got into that hole. First seek to understand why the person got in the hole before you judge a person and ask yourself would you have gotten into the same hole if you lived under the same circumstances. 

Everybody has their own problems and has a unique experience on how they got those problems, it's not helpful to judge without knowing the entire situation. So if you are going to judge, do you research first and if it's valid to give judgement, then go ahead, but it’s probably better to ask questions so that you understand first.

Journal Prompts

1. How can you ask questions so that you better understand a situation?
2. What happens when you judge a situation without fully understanding the situation?