Imagine you left home to go to work one morning and when you stopped to get coffee at the gas station, the cashier yelled at you and rolled his or her eyes, then the person in the car behind you kept blowing her horn though you were doing nothing wrong.  Then, the person who stepped off the curb against the red light, hit your car hood with his fist and cursed at you when you nearly hit them, as if you were the one who had done something wrong.  Then you get to your morning meeting and you are ignored by the speaker who asked for input, even though you have raised your hand several times.

Chances are, you would feel like you were having a pretty crappy day.  As a result, you might even take it out on someone else who crosses your path. though they had nothing whatsoever to do with what happened to you or how you felt. I’ve been thinking about this ever since I saw an exchange in the grocery store where someone got angry because a cart hit theirs.  Just a gentle bump you’d expect with carts being moved around.  I’ve also been thinking about the matter of microaggression.  These two may end up needing separate posts, but I’ll mention them both here.

I truly believe in the saying by Mahatma Gandhi,  “You must be the change you want to see in the world” and Anne Frank‘s “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”  I believe we have the power to do that in many more ways than we ever imagined.  We just have to think about it and practice it daily.  I believe that small things lead to big things and that if everyone did their part, so much strife could be avoided.  Not just in daily living, but in larger things as well.

Think about the opening scenario.  In fact, think about many of the bad days you have felt in your life.  Sometimes the source of your feelings is something totally beyond your control, such as the loss of a job during an economic downturn, or the death of a loved one.  But, probably, if you scored them,  many times the source of your feelings is simply someone treating you poorly.  In the opening scenario, each person who came into contact with our protagonist had a choice about how to treat him.  The choices were theirs to make.  They could act in a way that was kind, or they could act in a way that was not.  Just like treating him unkindly had consequences for him, so too does treating him kindly.

When we go through the world with kindness, even in the very little things we do, it creates a kinder atmosphere.  Most of us care greatly about the social environment in which we live.  That is what greeting people with a hello or a smile is all about.  Must we do such things?  No.  It just makes life more pleasant if we do.  It is a sort of grease that keeps the gears moving.  We could do without it , but eventually, the wear and tear caused by not having it catches up with us.

Something as simple as being kind and using the golden rule is not only a gift to others, it is a gift to yourself.  I don’t know about you, but I would rather go through my day feeling positive rather than negative, good rather than bad, happy rather than sad.  Extending kindness to others can make that happen.  Not only does it put you in a positive frame of mind, it extends out to others who feel it and respond to it in kind, usually.

I say usually, because it doesn’t always happen.  But, when you do it from a place in you that feels it, it doesn’t really matter how others take it.  It’s like my Dad used to tell me about speaking to people on the street.  He said it didn’t matter whether or not they returned the greeting.  “You don’t do it with the expectation of anything in return; you do it because you believe it is the right thing to do.  Once you’ve done it, you’ve done your part.  You don’t have any control over anyone else.  You did what you knew was right.”  I have used that advice so much in my life.

If you think about your average day, there is probably no question that it is made more pleasant if those with whom you come into contact are kind and extend that kindness to you in some way.  It does not have to be in a big way.  It can be a simple “hello.”  In fact, in March or so of 2014, Oprah began a “Just Say Hello” campaign to get people to just open up and say hello to others.  The kindness can be an “excuse me” for bumping someone’s cart in the grocery store or bumping up against them in a crowd.  Said with a genuine smile, it totally dissipates the tension otherwise arising from the situation.  People have been killed for less when something as small as this escalated.

Even in the face of others not sharing the same outlook, you still have control over yourself and because someone else does not care to also be kind does not mean you have to withdraw your kindness.  Especially when you are being kind because it is how you deal with the world rather than because there is a reaction you want from someone else.