Continuing this "Words I Live By" series, I have a much shorter one for this week:
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle."
-Supposedly this was said by Plato, but no one really knows
Of all the things people try to make themselves (smart, successful, rich, popular, etc.) kind is something that can often get overlooked.
Which is understandable because I feel like we use "nice" as a synonym for kind, and expressions like, "Oh yeah, she's nice" get thrown around without really meaning anything. So kindness gets really downplayed. Like, anyone who isn't a sociopath is considered "nice." It's not really something you have to work too hard to achieve.
But if you really think about it, being kind is a lot more than just someone shrugging and saying "yeah she's nice." To be kind you are going out of your way to do good for someone. You are putting aside an impulse to be selfish, or to be impatient, or to save yourself hassle because you know it will make someone else's day easier or better.
The other half of this quote revolves around a really important life fact: we are all the same.
Of course, we are all unique and different, and whatever other stuff your parents told you when you were little to make you feel special. But everything in life can always be looked at from both sides, and the flip side to "you are unique" is that "everyone is the same." We all generally want to be healthy and happy and comfortable, we all think that we are the most important people in the world, and we all have problems. Sure, some people's problems may be more severe than others, but to the person who only knows how it feels to have their own problems, it's all relative. So, everyone is always fighting some sort of battle, whether it be publicly known, or an internal battle. Everyone's always got something going on that's weighing on them.
We owe it to others to always keep this in mind.
I feel like it's kind of weird to end posts about a quote with another quote, but I can't give up the tradition now!
Since I feel like my impatience most often gets in the way of my kindness I'll go with this one:
"Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request."
-Lord Chesterfield
This post really struck a chord with me. Recently, while eating dinner with a group of friends, one of them brought up that he was finding himself ranking his friends into categories: close friends, semi-close friends, not really friends, etc. I found myself taken aback a little, and told him that I don't find much utility in ranking or categorizing my friends. I try, as hard as it might be sometimes, to equally treat all my friends with kindness. I like to think that if any one of my friends needed a ride to the airport, I'd bring them, no questions. What I mean to say, is that I live my life with the purpose of being kind to others. I know I am having a bad day when I find myself not being kind to others. If I get cut off while I am driving and I take it personally, I am certainly not having fun on that particular drive (and I generally love driving). Lately, I have been trying to surround myself with more and more kind people. Growing up, I never really considered it to be high on my friend priority list, but now I find it very near the top of the list. Great post!
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