On my office door, I have the following quote,
Last Tuesday, one of the young people I work with was standing near my door and noticed the quote. She said, “That’s stupid.”
I looked up to see to what she was referring. I asked her and she pointed to the quote. I said, “Why do you think that is stupid?”
She said, “I don’t care about kindness. I don’t know nobody who does. But I know when I’m right.”
Then I said, “Let me ask you something. Who do you live your life for?”
She replied, “My son. That’s all I care about.”
I said, “Don’t you think people should be kind to your son?”
She gave me the kind of blank stare that told me more than her words ever could. She truly did not understand what I meant. She did not know kindness.
At that moment, my heart broke for her.
Now, I don’t mean no one has ever shown her kindness. No, I know people have because I have. I have done many kind things for her in the 8 months I have known her. However, she has no recognition of the value of kindness.
She has been raising herself for a long time. She has been homeless. She has survived being a teen mom (and is still surviving it) and has faced some extremely challenging situations. Our program is allowing her to complete her GED, get some snacks and have a safe place to spend her weekdays. But to her, that’s because we are supposed to.
She does not understand kindness.
It really got me thinking. I understand kindness. I have watched my family be kind since I can remember. We always had ‘strays’ living with us. In spite of already having 6 children and another on the way, my parents did not hesitate to take in an 8th child who happened to be 13 and in desperate need of a home. They just did it.
I remember when I was about 7 or 8, there was a teenager who lived with us because he was no longer welcome in his own home. I don’t remember much about him, except that he was welcome in our home.
Each year, as each of my siblings went to college and come home for breaks, they (and I) often bought home friends who had no place else to go. My mom always welcomed them without question.
It was understood that my friends were welcome in my home whether I was there or not. One of my friends worked for my parents all through high school even though I didn’t.
I learned very early on, from my parents, that being kind was something you do. There is no because to it. There is no reason or reward. Kindness is what you do.
Don’t have change for the bus? Hold on, I might have it. Need some place to park your car? Our driveway is long! Not sure what your parents will say about your most recent college report card? Come on over to our house and talk it though with my parents. They will help you to figure out what to say.
We are all put on this earth for a reason. I have come to believe that my reason for being here is kindness. I am here to lighten the load of others. If I get through the day and have managed to make someone’s day a bit easier, a bit brighter or a little less stressful, then I have done well.
So, I stand by the quote on my door. Given the choice between being right or being kind, I will always choose kind. And with the job that I do, I will do my best to teach those young people the value of kindness.
Thoughts?
Several years ago driving home from work on ARB towards Verona and nearing Sandy Creek Road from my job as a mental health professional, I felt frustrated by the limits of my psychiatric work due to the confinds of a rigid institution, lack of resources and more specifically professional supervision. I stated my issues to my supervisors who could not give me any real concrete answers on how to deal with these stressful situaltions of my daily cases. It was considered a personal issue complicated by the corportation in turmoil. Each day on the ride home, my frustration would build, until I realized one day how I was in charge of “turning around my emotions” with a simple gesture at the stop light at ARB. As I approached the light, I decided to allow many cars that were facing me to make that left hand turn on to Sandy Creek Road……..well before the new stop light that now gives these drivers a left turn arrow before traffic proceeds ahead. Over and over I imagined to myself, that maybe the driver was on a rigid schedule or late for work between two jobs and I would be helping them get there on time; or maybe it was a young father hurrying home for work to get to his pregnant wife now in labor who had an unsuccessful pregnancy in the past history; or a mother trying to get to her child who had been hurt at school, needed a ride to the hospital and a consent for treatment.
I began to look forward to the end of the day as I headed towards Sandy Creek Road, after a very long day in crisis work in a stressful job in a mental instiution. I had learned that I possesssed the ability to graciously allow drivers at 5:20 pm to make the dreaded left hand Pgh turn against traffic. I felt impowered, that I had made someone’s day based on the story I had imagined in my mind.
As I look back after all of these years, I realize that I wanted to simply make someone feel good at that moment the end of a stressful day and keep my images of how I had helped someone get to where ever they were going a little more quickly. Selfish…….of course……..showing kindness and feeling helpful makes one look, act and feel better about themselves. Isn’t that what we all want to believe in ourselves every day?