It’s a tough time – so let’s all stop the judging and show unity

HERE’S a confession: I might be the most judgmental person on the planet. I’m so bad that back when Confession was a fortnightly part of my childhood, I didn’t own up to the usual sins of bad words and lying, and instead admitted to j udging other people – astonishing the priest, given my young age.

And in spite of all that penance, I’m still desperate for it: I judge people on their eyebrows, the contents of their shopping trolley, their choice of garden ornaments, their Christmas decorations – you name it, I judge it. A couple of years back, there was a man in my gym sporting a tattoo on his beefy calf that read, ‘Only God Can Judge Me’. Every time I saw him I thought, actually, no. I’m way ahead of Him.

But here’s a more important confession. Back at the very start of Covid, I made a conscious decision not to judge anyone else’s behaviour during the pandemic. I didn’t do so out of some latter-day sainthood; I made the choice because I realised that living through – and hopefully surviving – a terrifying global emergency would put enough strain on my mental health without my adding to it with toxic judgements of other people.

TO my absolute amazement, I have kept that resolution. At this stage, I must have been privy to a thousand conversations about people failing to comply with various Covid rules and restrictions, and every time, I have withdrawn from the debate, explaining my Gandhi stance and the reasoning behind it. Usually, the reply comes along the lines of, ‘You’re right, but…’, before another breach is presented for my condemnation.

What I have noticed about these conversations is that the complainant is always livid. And at the worst time in our lives, when we are struggling under the weight of anxiety, fear and grief, I don’t think any of us need to add livid to that burden.

Ryan Tubridy put it better than I could on Monday morning. Referring to the conversations that so many people are having at the moment – themed around ‘selfish people who insisted on having their Christmas’ – Tubridy suggested that discussions that are in the past tense are utterly pointless. Only the present and future tense are of any use when talking about the pandemic, he said, and he’s completely right. ‘I went to my neighbour’s house on Stephen’s Day’ is of no use to anyone now.

WHAT we are living through is hard. This week is probably the hardest of all. We are at the bottom of the trough. The numbers of infections are horrific. The health service is collapsing. The experts are using language stronger and scarier than at any time since this crisis started. In terms of infection rates, we are the worst in the world: we, the Green Army, everybody’s favourite party animals. To borrow from an earlier public health campaign, this is not who we are. Nor, crucially, is it who we want to be.

And all of that is enough. Indeed, it is more than enough. If we add to it by turning on each other, then what chance have we of getting out of this trough without stains and scars that might never disappear?

If the woman across the road hugged her auntie on New Year’s Eve, then there isn’t a blessed thing you – or she – can do about it now. Getting upset or angry about other people’s behaviour does nothing apart from raising your own anxiety levels. And if they’re not already in the gasket-blowing zone, then you haven’t been watching the news (and lucky you).

I’m not going to recommend that we support each other through this terrible time. Like I say, I’m not in the business of peace-making. But I do know that pulling apart, raging against friends, neighbours and strangers, only makes everything worse. We cannot change what’s happened; my God, if we could, there are thousands of us who wouldn’t dally at 5km boundaries with measuring tapes but would run to reclaim people we loved and lost.

We can make the next few weeks and months a little easier to bear if we stop judging others and concentrate on looking after ourselves. It isn’t going to be enough to emerge from this in good physical shape if we are so angry with each other that our mental health is dented. We need to stop living in the past tense and look to the future – when we can all get along, and I can get back to judging your haircut.