How the Standards of Respect Explain How to Move Forward- Part 6: Be Kind

How the Standards of Respect Explain How to Move Forward?

Part 6: Be Kind?

This is the final part of a series on how the Standards of Respect explain how to move forward. Click here for part one,?two,?three, four, and five.

“Have you noticed that only in time of illness or disaster or death are people real? I remember at the time of the wreck - people were so kind and helpful and solid […] [i]n another hour or so we had all faded out again and gone our dim ways.”-The Moviegoer?

A year earlier, I would have walked right by him.?

In the University parking garage, an obviously new dad was struggling to both hold his baby and fold the foreign-to-him stroller. “Here, let me help,” I said. “I know how to do that. I don’t have this one, but they are all basically the same.” I pulled a latch, the stroller folded, and we got it into his car. It was my last visit to the hospital before the pandemic.?

It was the one that made me finally understand an odd greeting I had heard when my daughter was born: “Welcome to the human experience.”?

What did that mean? What was different in that moment? Why was I different???

I saw myself in that parent and my daughter in that child.??

It wasn’t just there in that garage; I started noticing it everywhere.?In the wake of the upheaval that is becoming a parent, I had sonder – the profound realization that every stranger you meet is another human being who has a complex life of ideas, history, needs, and experiences all their own. They are unique, just like you. We realize, as Barry Brownstein writes, that “we see but a fraction of the individual we think we’re seeing, filtered through our own interpretations.”?

Now that we’ve altered our relationship to our pandemic experience by acknowledging, listening, communicating, being responsive, and being a team player, the final step in our journey to moving forward is to be kind. We need to be kind to ourselves, because improvement and transformation take time. And we need to be kind to others because we’re ready to see ourselves in them. We should have sonder.

“We’re all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by life’s trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.” -Charles Bukowski

Having listened to ourselves, changed our habits, and begun to check in with others close to us, how we move through the world should be different. Because we’re different now. In Latin, this is luctor et emergo: I struggle and overcome. I emerge on the other side. And part of what we need to overcome is our tendency to judge others or feel superior because of the inner work we’ve done. We need to emerge kinder.?

That person complaining at the checkout line? They’re having a hard time. They haven’t acknowledged that yet. I need to be kind to them.?

The friend who just won’t open up? They’re not ready to communicate. I need to be kind to them.?

The family member who has had the same problem for years but can never get out of their own way? They’re not being responsive. I need to be kind to them.?

“It is wonderful to know that the future—my own future and with it the future of the things, the people around me—is somehow, albeit to a very small extent, dependent on my decisions in every moment," wrote psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. Being kind is always a decision we make. Having gone through the rest of our journey, we’re especially ready to choose kindness more often.?

Closing?

The title of this series is How the Standards of Respect Explain How to Move Forward. That language was a deliberate choice. This isn’t about moving “on” or forgetting, it’s about getting our lives back on track. About no longer laying dormant and waiting for the world to return to “normal.”?

Starting with the first post in this series, inspired by Suleika Jaouad, I’ve been referring to the work we’ve been doing as meeting our future selves. But we will always be changing. The person you are today was always within you. If you like this version of you most, don’t wait for the next world-shattering event to continue improving and meeting that best version of you. Return to the standards and what we’ve learned.?

As we wrap this series, I want to leave you with this encouraging meditation from Leo Babauta of Zen Habits who reorients our relationship to struggle.

Luctor et emergo. I struggle and overcome.?

Emerge kinder. Be kind to each other. Thank you for reading.?

Mat

Special thanks to tod wiesman for doing his weekly updates and using his platform to involve others like me, to Natalie Comis for her hard work in editing my poor grammar, putting out this series via HR communications, and figuring out whether my humor had crossed the work line or not (oh the things she had to read), and Diana Avery for her belief in the series and invaluable perspective that touched every post and made every word better.?