Kindness
I’m heading out the door soon to my day job and thought I’d put out a reminder to myself and everyone else as well, practice kindness today. We should be practicing it every day, but set an intention to do so today.
Monday is the best day to practice it. It’s the day people are least happy to deal with traffic, work issues, or any other minor inconveniences. Which is why it’s the perfect day to practice kindness. Make yours and someone else’s Monday a bit better.
Here’s a great post at mint.intuit.com with a list of 70 Acts of Kindness. Pick one, there’s even a thirty-day challenge on the list.
A Few Areas of Weakness
As we go about our days we forget that some people don’t always move as fast as we do or think and respond as quickly as we do. In our rush to go, go, go, we get agitated, we interrupt, we force things along.
We pass the slow driver on the right, silently (or maybe not so silently) biting our tongue because they are driving slow in the left lane.
We glare at our spouse for loading the dishwasher differently than we do.
We get frustrated when someone younger doesn’t know something that seems so simple to us.
And, the big one, yeah I’m going here: we aren’t always so open to other’s political views. It gets downright nasty when people start calling others names like racist, fascist, communist, brain-washed, or any other variation of trying to give a reason as to why the person who doesn’t agree with you politically, is wrong or evil.
A Few Suggestions
So today, try kindness. We are all capable of being kind.
The slow driver in the left lane may be a new driver or deep in thought trying to solve a problem or may just be having a brain-toot on a Monday morning. We all get them.
As long as the dishes come out clean, who cares if your spouse doesn’t load the dishwasher the same. It’s one less task on your to-do list.
We forget that we know things that other people don’t and vice versa. Something we’ve paid attention to our whole lives may not have been something that another person has cared about until now.
My husband excels at this. He will talk electricity to me: ohms, volts, wattage, etc., as if I know what the heck he is talking about. Maybe he just thinks I’m smart enough to get it. Actually, I’m staring at him as if he’s an alien. To him, it’s super simple. Not to me.
So today, if someone doesn’t get something, this is your chance to be the hero. Kindly, inform them. If you’re nice they’ll be grateful. If you act as if they’re stupid, they probably won’t learn because they are too busy hating you.
As for the Political Anger…
First, let’s all agree to not be like Hitler. Hitler put out propaganda slamming the Jews. He called them animals. He talked about what horrible people they were. The reason he did that was so in the German’s minds, it was okay to hate the Jews. It was good to slam these people. It made it easier to turn in friends and neighbors to the authorities. And, it made it more tolerable to turn a blind eye to what was happening.
And our media is pushing the same hatred. Doesn’t matter what side you vote for, both sides throw out horrible terms to belittle the other. To diminish the humanity we all have inside us.
Don’t fall prey. I don’t care how you vote. I may not agree, but I know we are all humans and we are all (with the exception of true psychopaths) kind and good. We just don’t always agree on the end way to get to something.
Start seeing the people you don’t agree with politically as people, full-bodied, flesh and blood, heart-beating, oxygen-breathing people. People who all have feelings.
Practice Kindness
Tuck away your pride. Be the first to extend a hand, swallow your pride when someone extends a hand and you are still seething at the horrible words they previously called you. We don’t need to be bossom buddies, but we can learn to exist without searing hatred.
Today, practice kindness. It will get you further than a Prius.
A few other posts you may find interesting:
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