Just smile
What Are You So Scared Of?
A good friend asked me a question last weekend in a vulnerable moment. I didn’t really know how to answer, aside from saying “Of letting people down. Of letting me down.” It was a horribly vulnerably, honest moment; it’s no less true when I’m sitting here feeling stronger than ever, incredibly sure of myself.
Have you ever been in one of those group activities, where they make you take the Briggs/Myers test that puts you in a quadrant? I made a lot of you do it recently, I love those, they’re great. You usually end up exactly where your outdoor voice should be. I love to go home later and pick at where my indoor voice lives. I’m always two sides of that coin, I always have been. I bet most of you are too. I wonder often about people who aren’t.
I always come up introvert/extrovert. At work and at play I’m the head of many committees. I put myself out there. I’ve refined the ability to be Rah Rah Cheerleader and cynical snob. There are days I resent everyone, like I assume most people do. But then I look around at all those people I assume about and realize I’m being a jerk. They’re jus trying to get through their lives, they want to move on to better things like, just like me.
Well some of them are still jerks, let’s face it. That guy/gal texting behind you at a traffic light? Total jerk. Obviously. Moron texting, while wearing earbuds and crossing the road without looking? Total jerk.
I like to think I’m a cynic. I like to think I’m jaded and world weary. I like to think I’m tired of the coops and interns that think they don’t have to pay dues.
I’m a big fat liar.
I’m a giant optimist. Yeah, I still think the jerks walking into traffic texting and re-programming their IPods should pay the price.
Here’s the thing:
Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life.
It’s hip (and hip is hip again) to be cynical, snarky, mean. I get that! But I only get that if it’s because someone famous is doing something stupid, or wearing something outrageous. It’s a harmless way for the unheard to be heard. What other explanation for Perez Hilton.
But think about what I wrote up there. Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life.
In my twenties I was so sure I knew everything. I was sarcastic and dismissive. Sometimes, I still am. Those days I may think I’m clever, the day after I usually think I’m an asshole.
Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life.
Think about that. It’s been played with in movies and commercials (there was recently one, about paying nice things forward and how good that was).
The movie “Pay It Forward” had a terrible twist. But the message was still clear.
We’re in dire straits people. If we don’t help each other, no one is coming to help us.
We’ve bought these McMansions, on huge lots. But do we know our neighbors? Would they help us? Do they care?
They do. Everyday, I read amazing stories about people that didn’t know each other but reached out. A 66 year old man was jailed because of his brown lawn. Once his neighbors (not his horrific neighborhood association that sued him) found out; and people that were not his neighbors: they pulled together in a day to re-do his lawn and free him.
We have become a place where false governments (HOAs) influence our actual government. We have become a place where keeping your home is less a priority than keeping up your lawn. We have become a bunch of idiots that can’t see the forest for the trees. If a community organization has a man imprisoned for his lawn being brown, at the sake of his home being his? We have seriously decided to drink the sand that we believe to be water in the mirage before us.
Let us all step back. Let us all rethink.
Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life.
In these new hard times there are so many options before us. Go through your possessions and donate. Really? Really? Look hard at what you own. Think about The Spring, where abused families just need basics like clothes and shampoo. Think about the homeless tent cities that were destroyed. Do you really need a new lemon zester? Or are you buying it because you can? Because you haven’t been hit? Or because you are afraid you will be? And in two months, you won’t be able to sell it on Ebay.
No one is asking you for money. Although everyone is.
Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life.
It’s easy to be cold, sharp, abrupt.
It’s just as easy to smile.
Not even give, just smile.
Yes, people are annoying, and in your way and horrid and smell. But how hard is it, to smile? And once you try it? You might find you actually mean it. And others will mean it too.
