Why we should be less judgmental

We judge others for their wrongdoings or shortcomings with a less charitable lens than towards our own misdeeds or weaknesses. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockPhoto Though many Indians believe in fate and the laws of karma, these beliefs don’t necessarily permeate our everyday lives. We usually go about our daily routines, make plans, and chart longer-term goals as if we have control over our actions. Only when misfortune or calamity strikes do we fall back on a fatalistic worldview that things are actually beyond our pale. In an article in Psyche, Tara-Lyn Camilleri, an evolutionary biologist, asks us to perform an unusual experiment. For the next two weeks, live your life as if everything is fated. Pretend that people don’t have free will and that life simply unfolds according to the whims of fate.The reason Camilleri asks us to engage in this offbeat exercise stems from her own personal experience. While she believes “we have agency”, “our will to act” is itself influenced by an interplay of genetic and environmental forces, instead of being “freely chosen”. She came to this conclusion when a parasitic infection she contracted during fieldwork made her “chronically ill”. Unlike earlier, her own “effort and determination” did not yield the results she desired. As this experience has altered her worldview, she coaxes us to temporarily disband our belief in free will. Published - November 01, 2026 11:00 am IST