“There’s no bread or milk” my neighbor complained as we waited for the elevator in our Brooklyn building the morning after Hurricane Sandy hit. My first (and second) reaction was disbelief – after all people less than a mile from us were flooded out, everything lost thanks to the Atlantic’s surge through Coney Island on it’s way to Manhattan. I’m sure I made sympathetic sounds while shaking my head. (Much) later though I realized that all those people sloshing through basements in their own disbelief might have made the same complaint the day before.
“Be Kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
After all, our focus is always on the battle we’re currently engaged in. And that makes sense. We need all our energy to conquer our detractors each and every day. But are we so focused on our own battles we can’t also have kindness and empathy for others? I wonder about this more and more in the age of social media where we have to work so hard to get others attention.
“Be Kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
I’ve always loved this quote (which I’ve seen attributed to Philo, Plato and even Socrates) as a way to keep empathy for others front and center. It’s a hard thing to do, since, well, we’re fighting our own battles and seem to need all our sympathy for ourselves. I realized this again when I broke my wrist this past year.
Having wrist surgery seems to be as common as getting a filling these days. Lucky for me though I’d gone six decades without a broken bone. That said you’re probably not feeling loads of sympathy for me, but if it helps, it happened in Ukraine where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer and about a week before I was scheduled to leave. And I had to travel in a cast that felt as heavy as my suitcase.
Jet-lagged, I arrived in the states simultaneously trying to find an orthopedic surgeon and feed my hunger for sympathy. The doctor I found, the sympathy, well…
I heard about others’ ordeals with broken wrists, some having spent a year with a broken bone, cancer, and more. Each person’s story was more tragic than the next. And certainly worthy of more sympathy than my own tiny broken bone. Each person battled getting ready for work with their arm in a cast, getting to work or to chemo, and more. True, my temporary disability left me feeling grateful that mine was indeed temporary, and yet, I also began feeling invisible and inconsequential, broken a bit physically and emotionally. I wasn’t battling a serious brokenness, but it was still a disability. When I cast aside my emotions I realized:
People desperately needed to be heard and to share their won battles: past and present. I began to wonder how much I’d listened to them during their fights. I felt sad realizing I probably hadn’t been as kind as I could have. So there I was: sad I’d been unkind and miserable I couldn’t zip up my own coat (or pants for that matter).
I kept coming back to the same big THING: Listening! Really giving someone enough attention to say what’s on their mind and responding to it. Listening has become my complaint ‘cry’ of the year or rather the lack of listening. I don’t go on Facebook often, though it seems so many people are sharing verbal ‘posts’ about their current battles and victories and rewarded with likes and comments. If I’d shared my wrist progress on social media would I have gotten more ‘kindness’? Or is listening and two way conversations following rhinos into extinction? (other things that might become extinct in 2020)
Just the other other day I shared a thought with a housemate who responded with a totally unrelated digression. When I pointed out he obviously hadn’t listened he sang Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence’: ‘People hearing without listening…’
Funny (but not really), this song written so many years ago is a reminder that while fashion changes, we as people, don’t change nearly as fast. OR, maybe this is just our human nature?
Optimistically, I think we humans have a superpower: the potential for change. We change habitat by moving across the street or world (which I do often). Sadly, we are changing the habitat (our environmental crisis being the case in point). And of course we can and do change our phenotype: the way we look and present ourselves to the world.
Changing behavior though is really hard – really, really, hard – and this is the time of year to do just that. Change to heal our ‘brokenness’ is the basis of the Jewish New Year and specifically on Yom Kippur. For this new year, I want to change – to be kinder. To listen. Really listen. To myself and to others.
To all I apologize, and, if I haven’t said it before: “Tell me more.” I’ll listen and support you in all your battles large and small.
