If it’s all right with you dear diary, I’d like to spend a little time discussing kindness today.
I don’t think there is enough of it.
It’s only healthy to hate certain things, like parsnips, but I feel a little uncomfortable when hatred becomes overwhelming. When there is no balance between hate and kindness, the slippery slope gets another layer of ice and becomes difficult to climb back up that hill of decency.
You probably think I’m now going to start talking about Donnie Trump.
Well, I’m not, even though he would serve as an ideal Exhibit A. His venom is so obvious, I don’t believe it even qualifies as hatred. His diatribes lay somewhere beyond hatred, something that requires clinical assistance. So Donnie ain’t the topic.
Rather, it’s just the everyday goodness we observe that brings us the realization that newly born babies bear no hatred. We learn how to hate. But we can also learn kindness. Countless studies indicate it’s better for the body and mind to be subjected to kindness than having to react to hate.
What I find remarkable, is how little it takes to “make someone’s day.”
Twice last week, I read remarks on kindness that, as far as I know are unattributable, but certainly caught my attention.
One statement was a fun observation that simply stated that “if you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.”
How many times have we practised that lesson?
The other one stated that “it is better to be kind than right.”
Too often, I believe, the well-learned among us create a mini-firestorm simply because they stubbornly refuse to be wrong, even if they are. Again, I’m afraid Donnie has to be trotted out as the ideal example. Wrong more than he’s right, but in his assessment … always right.
Nobody sets out on a path to get things wrong.
Civic politics is one clear example.
Candidates, who become councillors always, to every man and woman, want to get it right for their community. I haven’t run across a local politician who hasn’t carried that ideal in their front pocket.
Alas, humanity gets in the way. Mistakes are made and success doesn’t arrive as anticipated, or doesn’t arrive on time to suit the masses.
So how do we approach those who have failed in a certain task or duty?
Do we pick kindness or hatred? And, please don’t cover yourself by using the phrase, “I’m not angry, just disappointed.”
Well, OK, you can use it, because that’s where the decency of vagueness (first quote, remember?) steps into the picture.
That’s why I applaud local people who are, in every respect, just ordinary citizens, willing to enter the ring of public scrutiny with scant rewards and plenty of critics, and yes, hatred, usually for some obscure reason. They enter the small world of local politics. They are, most often, amateurs, but they are sincere and they deserve to be heard and we, who are doing the scrutinizing, need to be kind. That does not mean abandoning criticism or skepticism … nay, those are healthy traits, often displayed within newspaper editorials and opinion pieces. It’s called free expression in a democracy. They are sacrosanct, or at least they are in my world.
Local candidates are generally not putting themselves out there for applause or to impress anyone with their need to be right. They just want to express opinions, yours and their own, and make decisions for the welfare of their community. We can only hope they do their homework so that they are, in fact, right more often than they are wrong. That’s all we should expect. So vote dear diary, it will make you feel better.
