Warm greetings everyone. I hope that you're doing great. It's another interesting time here and I feel delighted to participate in this week's prompt by 
Judging - What is the difference between judging and criticizing? Do you think people confuse the two? Why? Which do you think is worse, judging or destructive criticism? Why?
Oftentimes you hear people say “do not judge me” or “you're being judgemental”, the word “judging” is commonly used more often than “criticizing”. Mostly the former is used in place of the later, but I'll talk more on that as we progress.
I'd say that judging is kind of forming an opinion or conclusion on someone based on one's personal belief or perception of their character or behaviour, which in most cases comes from a place of little or no idea of the full details or the person's circumstances.
While criticizing is expressing disapproval or pointing out someone's fault, mistake or wrong based on their behaviour or performance on work done. While judging attacks or condemns the person based on assumptions or feelings, criticizing points out mistakes based on facts with the intention of improvement or to make them better.
There's a thin line between judging and criticizing. It takes wisdom, clarity and objectivity to expressly differentiate the two without mixing it up. Hence, in most cases people confuse both, though, unknown to them or as a result of misconception.
For instance, in a work environment, a person clouded with pride is likely closed to learning and as such may not welcome constructive criticism. Any attempt by their colleagues or superior to point out some mistakes in their work performance would be termed as judging.
On the other hand, a worker who's always at his game and all of a sudden dropped in performance which may be as a result of some personal, family or health challenges. The superior may query, surcharge or issue a sack threat without first finding out the cause, based on his assumptions, that it's complacency or decline in interest. While this is judging, he may think it's criticism.
Having stated the meaning of judging, I think it is imperative to state what destructive criticism is too, for better understanding. Destructive criticism tends to undermine, or negatively attack someone just to tear or bring them down for the wrong reason and fault finding.
I think destructive criticism is far worse than judging. Just like I mentioned above, destructive criticism is a deliberate act of character assassination while judging tends to condemn based on mere assumptions.
In conclusion, judging forms opinion and draw a conclusion on someone based on assumptions. Constructive criticism points out mistakes or wrongs based on facts with the intention to make better. Destructive criticism is a deliberate act to castigate or find faults just to bring someone down.
This is my response to the prompt.
Thanks immensely for stopping by! 💚
