How kind do you need to be?

[hirondelle]

I just shared a Facebook post saying sthg like "I need to stop hating on complete strangers" lol. Or sthg like that - I didn't use hate, but it is that kind of feeling.  Deeply uncharitable thoughts let's say.  Mostly this happened when I am commuting to work public transport is never designed to bring out the best in people... and it really irks me when people rush past me, collide into me, push me out of the way, or block my path because their head is in their phone.  I have some extremely negative thoughts, but most of the time I try and be positive because I am aware of how much difference you can make in the world simply by not being an asshole. But jeez sometimes people push my limits.

I was wondering if you all go through life like this? Like I have some guiding principle to be nice (I feel it is a bit Christian based, but you can find it in any spiritual teaching... basically even if someone is a shit to you, don't make it worse by being a shit back. Smile and stop the negative karma in its tracks).  But this is at war with my very human instinct to hate them back harder.  Just an aside I watched this impulse at work in hockey games I watched last night... there was very little other cheek being turned, but it did happen sometimes.  

How hard do you try and be nice? Does it make a difference?

[Timberwolf]

I think it does make a difference. Yes, some sometimes struggle on public transport, and sometimes I really really struggle on public transport, but I do my best to be better next time. Yes, this sometimes happen on sports activities, but usually (unless they are huge huge rivals) they are pretty chill with each other before and after. It’s just during the particular event thing things become difficult. 

 

I’d love to hear other points of views. 

[Cyrain]

It can be a hard, fine line to walk... how nice to you have to be when other people just seem to use it to their own gain or take advantage. To continue with the example of commuting: when the highway is backed up with traffic and people on the entrance ramp are wanting to merge...how many people do i have to let in front of me before I’ve met my ‘nice’ quota? 

As angry and vitriolic as my thoughts and sometimes words, can be on the road at rush hour... when I stop and consider, I run into the same two points: 1, that they other people out there probably think the same toward me, and 2, that there’s little real malice behind my thoughts/words. 

Its not always easy, but when I have to be in public, I try to be kind, and remember not to judge too harshly...you never know what someone is going through in that moment. The idiot who runs into you, absorbed in their phone might have just received the worst news of their life. I try... but not easy, with all these other idiots on the road

[Kenai]

*shrugs* I try to be nice as often as I can.  If others are mean or rude, that is on them.  I can only answer for myself.

[Phoenix]

It's definitely on the roads too, in this part of the world (even with heads fixed on screens, too, sadly).

I don't have a lot of patience for others when I'm in transit, but I don't get angry. More like really irritated. I think it helps that the act of driving defensively contributes to a more passive mindset. 

Here in Chicago specifically, I feel like my actions are a drop of positivity in a sea of hate, so, no I don't think it makes a difference. Elsewhere in the country though, where it's not all rat race all the time, I feel more confident that being pleasant has an impact.

[Cyrain]

Oh god, I would never want to drive through Chicago traffic. People are crazy over there. Friend and I went to concert, and had considered a road trip, but we decided to take the train and walk to the venue, and I’m so glad we did. Stress levels would have been through the roof otherwise. >.<

[Tika]

Being in a small town in the Midwest I've found a lot of people are excessively nice, but it's rarely genuine.  There's a lot of nice to your face and then stab you in the back.  There's also this noise Midwesterners make when they bump into someone, "ope' that I only recently realised I make too lol.  Even like black friday shopping here people still say excuse me if they run into you.  Hell I've said sorry to inanimate objects...  >.<

It's also my job to be nice to people even when they're verbally or physically abusing me so I run a little short on nice outside of work sometimes but it's pretty ingrained in me.

[Timberwolf]

On 3/31/2018 at 8:17 AM, Tika said:

There's also this noise Midwesterners make when they bump into someone, "ope' that I only recently realised I make too lol.  Even like black friday shopping here people still say excuse me if they run into you.  Hell I've said sorry to inanimate objects...  >.<

I remember that sound, and I think I still make it from time to time. When I hear that sound, it always reminds me of growing up, and it’s a nice feeling. 

On 3/31/2018 at 8:17 AM, Tika said:

 

Being in a small town in the Midwest I've found a lot of people are excessively nice, but it's rarely genuine.

 

It makes me sad when I see this. I don’t think it’s wrong, I just personally choose to believe that they are genuine. 

 

On 3/29/2018 at 10:48 PM, Phoenix said:

Here in Chicago specifically, I feel like my actions are a drop of positivity in a sea of hate, so, no I don't think it makes a difference.

This also makes me sad, but I can understand the feeling. Again, I choose to believe that my little bit of genuine kindness will hopefully make that one person a little bit happier and in turn, they just might give that little bit of kindness to one person and so on and so forth. 

That being said, just the other night, I was tired, long day of working and playing at a hockey tournament, and at 12 we went down to the main road to get a taxi and people were walking down the road to get a taxi before us, which was upsetting me, then we had a taxi pull up, and Goddess was telling him where we would like to go, and for some reason he didn’t want to take us, I got more upset and slammed his door shut, probably a little harder then I intended, and he got out of his cab and started yelling at me as he was walking towards us shaking a water bottle at me. When I turned and looked at him, he did stop, but he kept yelling and shaking his bottle at me, I just keep telling him to do his fucking job. So I’m hondsight, I probably made things worse for the next person/foreigner he had to pick up, and for that, I’m very sorry. I was wrong for slamming his door. 

[Kethlia]

Assume the Best in Others is a practice often preached by the standards of the coffee trade. It's the first thing you see when you walk up to help a customer at the register and think of as you hand off their drink.

As a healer it's been drilled into me that I should never let my negative feelings especially anger touch any food or drink from someone else. Let only healing flow as it is needed.  Yet, that doesnt mean that I should be the only one with presence of mind that though I may work for such a coffee shop in a grocery store to boot does not mean that I any less human than the person before me.  Hell, I know I get paid decent money to sling coffee for a luxury indulgence that won't be life or death to you if it disappears forever but at least leave me the ability to feel and work through such feelings by having understanding that goes both ways.

Seriously if I have to remember to assume the best in others way can't any of you do the same, you who stand before me as patrons.  This applies just as well to life in general. Especially when applied to anything pertaining to speed or lack thereof.  I am not in a hurry to keel over. Slow down and enjoy a moment's conversation with person who is part of a long chain of people making it possible for you to get most of what you want when you want without waiting through the actual time it takes to get them to that point of existience. Hurrarumph! *Gets of soap box and looks around for things to cuddle*

[Tika]

So I retract some of my earlier thoughts that a lot of the kindness isn't genuine.  We had a snowstorm here the other day and my daughter put my car in the ditch. Nothing serious just a little ditch, no one was hurt and no damage, she just couldn't get out due to the snow.  And in the 15 minutes or so it took me and my son to get over there with his truck to pull her out she had at least 5 people stop to see if she needed help.  So there are a lot of genuinely kind people here I'm just really cynical and bitter lately.