During school for the last couple of days, we have moved to "Team Sports Unit" in gym. My gym class consists of about half who play sports and half who don't. I'm one of the ones who don't. So, we had one class of practicing skills needed to play a game that I forgot the name of. It encompases three differnt sports: basketball, soccer and football. So, we were told to practice the skills. Our gym teacher lined up cones for us to weave in between and practice. We all lined up into seperate lines. We were supposed to have about 7-10 people in every line and 4 lines. It turned out like this instead (#'s are approximate): 10, 6, 9 and about 7. We lined up into our own seperate "cliques". But that's a different topic I'll discuss later....
So, our teacher said to "soccer-style" dribble the ball down the lane, and then back up. I don't play soccer and never did, so it was a bit of a challenge. Most of the other people in my line struggled as well. So, I was observing the situation carefully. When the first girl came back (she did pretty well with the ball), no one said anything to her. When the second one came back, no one said anything to her either, (because she's not talkative herself), when I came back, people said "NICE JOB".
That was the moment when it clicked for me. By just these two words, I felt like I made a complete fool of myself out there. And, don't get me wrong, they didn't say it to be ironic or mean, they said it to SUPPORT.
Those two words, "nice job", encompass in themselves that "you could have done a bad job, but you did ok, so, good job" These words do not consider people as people, they consider people as "judgement objects."
(This is a difficult thing to explain, so bare with me)
But, I just kind of ignored that "click" for a moment. And I observed another girl. She generally thinks that she's bad at sports, but her skills are average. So, when she finished and came back, and most people said Good Job to her, her face flashed, "INSECURITY, SHAME, REGRET, and a kind of feeling like "yeahh, ok..."
The whole nature of the judgement Good Job, would mean that she could have done a bad job, as well. But, she couldn't have possibly done a bad job (In reality), no matter how clumsy or "bad" she was at the game, because every person just plays the way they can. And this is not that "compassionate, caring, supporting sloppy talk like "everybody tries their best." It's not that. You just play, and that goes into your self expression also.
These two words limit your self-expression and return you to your insecurity-based thoughts and images. It's like these words were created by systems to just return you to slavery. Even if you were enjoying yourself, or just expressing yourself with the ball, (even if it flew out of your hands on its own every time), it is still your self-expression. If it is judged, self-expression turns into a device to make you a slave....
So, the judgement, even if it is a positve one, it is still a method to fuck the person up. Positve judgements are still judgements, dont' think otherwise. (lol)
This point goes into "being good enough", "being ashamed of being watched", "feeling depressed", "feeling like you can't do anything", "shutting inside yourself" etc. Basically these two simple words support abuse.
THEY ARE SUPPORTING ABUSE. Therefore, people should not be judged based on their self-expression. And Good Job needs to leave my vocabulary for ever.
Ok, that's it for now :D
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