About Unwritten

We live in a world that judges fast and forgives slow. One headline, one post, one wrong sentence taken out of context and the verdict is in before the story even begins.

I’ve caught myself doing it too. Forming opinions too quickly, convinced I’ve seen enough to know the whole truth. It’s easy to feel righteous when you’re sitting behind a screen, watching other people’s lives unfold like a highlight reel of mistakes.

But judgment is cheap. It doesn’t cost much to point fingers from a distance. What’s hard is to pause, to sit in the discomfort of not knowing, to admit that there might be more to the story than what’s visible.

Cancel culture has turned that impulse into a sport. We call it accountability, but too often it’s entertainment dressed as morality. Someone messes up, and we gather not to understand, but to burn. The line between consequence and cruelty gets blurrier every year.

I think about how, not long ago, mistakes used to stay small. You said something you shouldn’t have, hurt someone you didn’t mean to, learned, changed. Now, one bad moment can follow you forever, permanent scar in a world that preaches growth but rarely allows it.

Maybe that’s why I’ve started slowing down my reactions. When someone disappoints me, I try to look for patterns, not moments. Intent, not perfection. The truth is, everyone’s capable of being both the hero and the villain, depending on the day.

I’ve been misjudged before by people who caught a glimpse of me in a moment I wasn’t proud of. And if I’m honest, it still stings. It’s humbling to realise how fragile reputation is, and how quickly empathy disappears when someone else’s downfall makes us feel better about our own.

So now, before I judge, I pause. Before I comment, I breathe. Because the world doesn’t need more noise, it needs more people willing to understand that being human means being messy.

Maybe compassion isn’t about excusing what people do wrong, but about remembering that none of us are ever just one version of ourselves.