There was a t shirt I used to have in high school: Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty. I try.
It’s better than “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Regardless of how others do, you do what’s right. I like that better.
What is right has never seemed flexible to me. I always knew what was rude, what was wrong, what was too far to go. Others seem to have a different viewpoint. What is right shifts to work with their rationalization of their own feelings. Of course, there’s the whole “what if your spouse were dying and you had no money for the medication” question. That’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about treating other people kindly. Not to better yourself, but because it’s one of the few things left in our world that individuals can do to change it for the better.
A few months ago, I was driving with my son - now 5 - in the car. He was sitting in a booster seat in the back of my car. Next to him was another booster seat which is normally occupied by my daughter. The traffic was stop-and-go, and at one point, a woman in the car next to me motioned for me to roll down my window. When I did, thinking maybe my tire was flat or something, she scowled at me and said “Don’t you love your son enough to put him in a car seat!?!” Well, I blinked, knowing he was IN a car seat, and said “He IS in a car seat.” She was in a large SUV, and I was in my VW bug, so she peered over from the driver’s side and said “No he’s not! What kind of a mother are you?” Obviously, she was transferring some inner anger onto a situation she had misinterpreted. I looked over at my son, who was buckled in correctly, and looking very frightened that a woman was yelling at me. I could have eviscerated her for the look on my son’s face. She was out of line, and wrong to boot. But I found some kind of inner calm somewhere, and I looked back at her and said “Have a nice day” Just as the cars in front of us moved, and the meeting ended. Now, she may have taken it sarcastically. I don’t know. I never will. But I felt pretty good about saying it. My optimistic hope is that she realized she was wrong, and was shocked out of her nasty mood. I know I did the right thing, though. For my son as well as for my peace of mind. She tried to shame me, and there was nothing to be ashamed of, so instead of throwing it back at her, I wished her well.
I think the devil thrives on misunderstandings. Hatred is contagious because of them. When someone insults you, and it’s obvious that there’s not really any true basis behind it, take a second to think: is it really important that I win? Is it really important that this person feels as bad as they tried to make me feel? Like ripples in a pond, what we do affects everyone around us. Why not do something to counter negativity than to spread it?
The instance I just mentioned was a mistake. It wasn’t that the woman wanted to hurt me or scare my son. I’m sure she thought she was making my son safer. There are other things that have happened lately that are not so innocent, and it seriously colors my view of certain people to know they are capable of such rudeness.
It doesn’t take any fortitude or honor to harbor a grudge, much less to compound that grudge with more and more evidence to rationalize it. So easy, isn’t it, to sit back and say “See? that proves I’m right”. It’s called spite, and it’s an ugly ugly thing to have. How hard is it to swallow pride and accept another person’s past mistakes, then move forward to recognize when people change for the better? Apparently it’s much harder than setting up one of the rudest, nastiest tricks I have ever witnessed, and then refusing to listen to anyone who tries to stop the painful result. Personality is not a fixed thing. It changes with circumstance and experience.
I know, this isn’t making much sense. The details are just mindbogglingly complex and you don’t know the people anyway. Suffice it to say, I’m stuck in the middle, watching two factions disintegrate a very long, happy friendship. It is disintegrating, too. Rapidly.
I think, to counteract the negativity I keep getting from this one situation, I am spreading love and kindness like crazy. I’m taking care of other friends who need a little smile, going out of my way to be kind to people in line with me at the grocery store, listening to the little girl down the street that has a plan to build a theater in her yard.. little things, really, but I noticed that I was doing more than usual.
We need more kindness. It spreads like smiling spreads. Have you ever noticed that smiling is contagious? God knows we need a little more cheer in the world right now. If all it takes is smiling instead of yelling; thinking instead of exploding; forgiving instead of damning, surely we can all make a difference.
