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I've never been fond of the word "nice". It always seemed such a pasty little word. But lately I am starting to notice with sadness the erosion of "nice" in our everyday world. You know what I mean -- things like civility, courtesy, respect, people saying thank you, doors held open, a wave of the hand when letting someone get in the traffic lane, thank you notes, signs of appreciation, helping hands. We are all so distracted by our cell phones, our careers, our over-burdened schedules, that we have started to value the slickness of efficiency (uninterrupted action) as an ideal. I want to get in the lane - I'm in the lane - move on to the next demand.
And we are paying a price for this as a nation and as individual beings. Our spirits make us more than just the sum of our actions. They connect us each to the other as part of a larger human community. What we do or neglect doing has an impact on those around us. And what we succeed doing (or fail to do) as individuals, we will replicate up through the layers of individual, family, neighborhood, community, etc -- until we forget to be respectful as a nation. To not express mindful compassion and caring every day is to harden our own hearts, to disengage us a little bit ea ch day from everyone else in the world.
And that is exactly what this world, and our own human hearts, do not need. We need to engage each other daily, even if in small ways. We've all heard of "Random Acts of Kindness", but when is the last time we really committed to a life full of just such acts?
Think Good Thoughts. Do Good Deeds. Be the Change.
It is no secret that I have a stressful, thankless job. Mondays are usually the worst. Today was just absolutely, positively better than the norm. I think it was in part because things are starting to calm down and even out among the little degenerates, in part because I decided it was going to be a better week, and in part because I performed three random acts of kindness for three people that will never ever be able to repay me. While I do not want to divulge the details, I will share that it made each of their lives a little better for the short term with little cost or stress to me.
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Here is a fun and instructive challenge: This week, give something anonymously to someone whom you know needs it. But give it in such a way that it cannot be tracked back to you. And never tell anyone, not even us, that you did it. Just give it in the purest way.
Tess, in her blog, speaks of a phrase she likes :20"guerilla compassion" -- saying a blessing for random people "May you be happy. May you be at peace." But this wasn't working for her. Then she tried this:
So I’ve begun trying something different. Blessing people I feel no affinity with. People, in fact, toward whom I feel instinctive dislike. Deliberately choosing the wide-boy City banker, the braying arrogant lawyer, the over made-up girly girl. May you be happy, may you be at peace.
And this is really stretching me. But it’s impossible to set deliberate compassion in motion for someone while feeling contempt for them. I’ve begun to remember not only faces but details: the bitter lines around someone’s mouth, the patch on the jaw missed while shaving in a hurry, the faint sour morning smell of last night’s alcohol.
I could barely tell those City types apart before - all those white boys in their co-ordinated shirts and ties. Now I’ll bless someone in the morning and wonder later how “my” banker is doing.
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That is heady stuff -- the man she didn't like now becomes "her" banker -- the one she hopes has done well. On an individual level it is person-changing stuff -- on a larger level, well, it could change the world. A simple positive thing could change the world. Read the last sentence again if you have to.
The Last Girl on Earth talks about reinstating simple civility and the effect it can have:
When I was a kid, my mother would take my sister and me around the city on public buses. She ALWAYS thanked the bus driver when we would exit the bus. To this day, I
