Without going into too much detail, over the last couple of days I've witnessed a couple of random acts of meanness - and when I say meanness, I mean actual mocking of random strangers for no reason. It made me sad - maybe I'm just extremely naive but I really don't understand why someone would ever do that. I made a decision a while ago that I would do my best to never deliberately be the cause of someone's bad day, and that even if someone was cruel to me I would never stoop to their level. I forget who said it, but I read a quote to the effect of "treat everyone with respect even if they don't do the same for you - not because they are kind, but because you are." Mean people especially get to me during the holidays, when we are supposed to be showing our neighbors love and compassion.
This morning I decided that instead of continuing to be mad at mean people, I will make the week leading up to Christmas a random act of kindness week, and will try to go out of my way to give one small gift each week to someone I wouldn't normally think of giving too, and counteract the bad energy with good energy
So suck it, mean people. You cannot win.
I often want to return jerkiness with more jerkiness (put the jerks in their place by giving them a dose of their own medicine).
ReplyDeleteBut that would merely exacerbate the problem. So I shall join you in this endeavor by being kind and sweet whenever possible (like this morning when I carried a woman's package into the post office while she carried her small child). :)