Judge not yest (i think its yest) ye be judged ... or can you wear his shoes?

You know how people say three strikes your out?

Ya, not with me, i hand out fourth chances like their  going out of style and I'm having a clearance sale. I find that many people i know tend to judge first before they hand out any chances at all. They judge a prospective friend or an existing one, based on their past and what they have seen in the present. One story can turn them off, one fuck up will get you cut from their friends list.

I don't work like that. The reasons for this are numerous, one major reason being that i am never sure what i would have done/said if i was in the other persons shoes at the time of the circumstance being judged.

A friend of mine fucked up large a few years ago and i was shocked to hear the story of it this weekend.  I mean i knew this guy was the outcast of the group, somewhere along the line people began to cut him loose,  but no one told me why, apparently this is what went down: 

The Players: 3 guys, 1 being the guy who fucked up the other two being the victims of the fuck up

The Location:  A sketchy park in the red light/eight ball district Toronto.

The Story:

So these three guys are  chilling out in a park some years back (about 6 years ago, ya some things never get let go). This park happens to be "run" by a local gang (i.e. some 18 year olds who think they have the world by the balls when in fact they don't have any balls at all, but whose going to tell them that?).

They were drinking in the park, having a good time, when this gang rounds the corner and an argument breaks out. Turns out they didn't want people on their turf drinking liquor (oh sure whatever you say officer douchebag!). So they grab the bottle of liquor being drunk and smash it over my friends head. The guy in question knows the gang members, they are cousins of his and he gets told by them to either run or stay and get hurt. So he runs all the way home and pretends it never happened. I don't mean run figuratively, this guy actually ran all the way home. Needless to say the other two guys never speak to him again.

The two guys were upset to find out i still have relations with him. They tell me that because of what he did, he shouldn't be considered a friend, that if i was ever in need he wouldn't be there. Maybe you are thinking the same thing right now, but here's why i cant agree:  when i hear a story like this i stop and put myself in that persons shoes, i mean really put myself there.

So lets picture it for a second, your a  17 year old kid hanging out in a park in a sketchy downtown Toronto neighborhood.Its dark out and your high on the awesome feeling that comes from getting drunk under age and being out past curfew. Your cousin, someone you have known your whole life, walks up and hits your  best friend over the head with a Grey Goose bottle. Your best friend is bleeding, people start throwing punches, your cousin tells you that if you try to fight back he will come after you.What if has a gun? a knife?  What would you do?

I bet some of you are thinking " id jump the guy like an hungry spider monkey." But thats what you think as you sit reading the words on your computer screen all snug in your homes, or offices. No ones jumping anyone in front of you right now, no ones yelling, your not in a shitty neighborhood, and your cousin isn't asking you to choose blood over water in some creepy loyalty rule kinda way. So you can never really put yourself in those shoes can you?

Then i think about all the stupid shit I've done. Some of it questionable, some of it I'm still not sure why i did, or what i would do better if i was given the chance to press  rewind  on a universal remote.

But i know that if i were judged on all of that, if i could show you some epic video montage of my life's fuck ups right now, no one would be able to say i was a perfect person. Half of you may even think poorly of me, you may press the unfollow button, telling people over drinks " i blame the parents" or whatever else passes as an excuse for  questionable behaviour.

So my question to you is, how do you judge? and what would you have done had you been in my friends shoes?