PEBBLE
It’s easier to be kind to others when I remember that none of us came into this world with a manual about how to get it all right.
~Jill Bolte Taylor (lightly edited), shared by Meg in Indianapolis, IN
BOULDER
We don’t have to know all the burdens someone else carries to hold their humanity with great care. When we honor the humanity of another, we give ourselves permission to be human too.
~Kayla Craig, shared by Marita in Alma, MI via this post
PONDER
I’ve noticed it while driving and in the grocery store, too…everywhere I go it seems like everyone much shorter fuses, much less patience and heaps more frustration and hostility. We’re all in a hurry, feeling frazzled and trying not to explode.
As a result, we’re quicker to snap at someone or at the very least roll our eyes and think terrible thoughts about what a ___________ (terrible, incompetent, mean) human being they must be to behave that way.
I think we’re all tired, frustrated, and totally spent. I told someone the other day that one of the (many) reasons we’re running so low on reserves is that we made it through the other side of a multi-year global pandemic without ever getting a proper chance to relax, catch our collective breath, and to recover a bit. There wasn’t a specific moment when it made sense to celebrate the fact that we did enough things right to move us out of the pandemic phase of Covid, saving a whole bunch of lives in the process.
And now we find ourselves in the current weirdness/hardness, and we are completely depleted. It doesn’t feel like we have any extra time or bandwidth for things like being pleasant to our fellow humans. We may not be spreading as much kindness as we used to, nor are we on the receiving end of kindnesses as often as we used to.
I don’t think we need some kind of huge kindness revolution or anything massive like that….ain’t nobody got time or energy for that right now. STILL: if a bunch of folks who read this would summon the commitment and effort to extend a little extra grace/forgiveness/kindness just one extra time each day, I’m telling you, it would make a real difference in the world, and it would have an immediate impact on YOU. At least some of the time you gave people permission to be human, you’d notice that it tends to make you feel a little better, and it just might inspire the folks who experience and/or witness your small kindness to unleash one of their own.
So, the all important question: are you in?
Peace,
Paul
P.S. Here’s the cool thing: if you don’t have a strong, whole body YES to this experiment, you can give YOURSELF permission to be human and respond with a, “No thanks, not at this time.” And then guess what: you’ve actually participated!
