Be kind.

The short version:

If you're not kind to strangers, you're not a kind person.

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind." - Kurt Vonnogut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

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The long version:

I'm struggling with this post. There has been more than the usual amount of hateful stuff on the internet this week- in addition to the normal snarking across the internet, there have been instantaneous reactions to the Arizona shootings with people jumping to make accusation on all sides about a man who was obviously disturbed, the jokes following Lindsay Lohan being released from rehab and the people that said Ted Williams would fall down and relapse (he has entered rehab at the time I'm writing this) without giving the guy a chance. It's unnecessary to make knee-jerk, reactionary statements about those things without any kind of proof or reasoning or personal, insider knowledge of the situations at hand. It's been affecting me more than usual and I can't help but reflect on it, especially with the snow on the ground and the world seemingly feels further away than normal. It's not, of course, further away than usual thanks to the internet, but being isolated from real life people makes me think about it a little more.

Humanity is fragile. We are scared of rejection, of heartache, and of emotional pain. We also think we know everything, that our way is the right way, and that other people are stupid. We make assumptions on other based on their jobs, their favorite restaurants, their religion, their political beliefs, their music choices, whatever. We treat others with indignant condemnation for the smallest infractions, the smallest mistakes, the smallest misstep in choice of words without any thought of the consequences, big or small.

I worked in retail for 3 years, 3 months, and 4 days and learned a lot about humanity in the process. People can be downright NASTY to retail employees, and I honestly think that it spoke volumes about those people's characters more than anything they could have said about themselves in any other situation. However, there were also people who were so human it made my heart hurt- the elderly gentleman who sent a kind note "To the shopgirl that helped me on the phone" (that was me) requesting help doing a return, the dad who came in with his three little girls and asked for books on divorce for kids while holding back tears, the man on the phone asking for directions to the store with the preface of "it's rainin' out and it's just me and my dog" who ended up being a Vietnam veteran, the grandma who didn't quite have enough cash to buy everything she wanted to for the babies at her church because she forgot to calculate in sales tax. I helped them all the best I could, but they helped me more than I could have ever helped them. They would inevitably come right after I had someone throwing a fit about a return or a misplaced book and the contrast would shock me back into holding off hating the public for a little while longer.

I had a weirdly long talk with one of the Yale bus drivers the other night. For the most part, they're pretty stoic dudes but I managed to engage one in conversation when I took AC dinner. He even pulled the bus over cause we were ahead of schedule for the next stop! I asked him if people ever rode the bus at night because they couldn't sleep, which evolved into a conversation about anything and everything. And it was awesome, and reminded me that his job is so utterly thankless. People flag him down even at non-bus stops, don't say hi when getting on or thank you when getting off and deals with New Haven drivers all day. Not a job I'd want, especially when just driving to the grocery store fills me with RAGE at the drivers around here. Be kind to your bus drivers.

Nobody's life is perfect. Everyone has something in their life that is going terribly wrong. And most people are doing the best they can with what they've got. It's hard out there and all of us could use a little kindness.

Be kind.