Treat everyone with politeness and kindness, not because they are nice, but because you are.

Treat everyone with politeness and kindness, not because they are nice, but because you are.

Can you bite your tongue?

All the time? Most of the time? Or on rare occasions?

The opportunity to be civil, polite, and most importantly, kind, could not be more important in life, for a hundred different reasons.

Let’s start with one of the less considered reasons… because you say things that annoy, irritate, hurt or antagonize others, whether you are aware of it or not. You might take exception to this, but, given how diverse perspectives are in life, would you not allow for the prospect that in your daily engagements and interactions, that you are likely to say or share something of value to you that is not of value to them? 

Far more important (to me) is the prospect of maturing oneself into a higher vibrational human being, by recognizing that this quality exists in others and that in various moments of your interactions with them, they may be likely to communicate something that is less than desirable to you. Your options at that point are to noticeably agree (whether you do or not), let the moment slip without comment, or to take offense and engage with whatever your counter opinion is. Every other option (I believe) is a permutation of one of these three. 

I believe our best opportunity is to cruise through life with a vibrant perspective, worthy of utilizing in precisely moments such as these. In our engagement with another person or people, we are continuously going to find ourselves encountering various shades of interactions that are less than agreeable to us. This puts us in a growth opportunity of learning how to bite our tongue. It gives us a chance to put a simple flashcard in our mind that interrupts our desired response with one that is measured, polite, and kind, regardless of how or what the other party shared.

One might argue circumstances where the other party is wholly abusive, and politeness, nor kindness has any merit in the equation. I might respond that it would be best to find a quiet spot in one’s mind that puts their rudeness into a garbage disposal and vacates it from the mind, and just leave and continue with our own lives.

Does this always work? No. I am the first to admit that this is still an area of growth that I continue to try to improve upon, as best as I may, on a daily basis. I would say the political divide paired with the massive rise of social media in the last 15 years has been one of the most volatile training grounds for me in this area of self maturity. I used to engage and debate. I finally came to the conclusion that prior to social media, those people still had their opinion, as do I. I did not debate them prior to social. I did not even know many of them, prior to social. So who cares about debating them at all? That was a great revelation for me. They can be passionate about their perspective as can I but I do not need to engage on the topic with them ever. We settle this at the ballot box. That is what makes our democracy great.

Remain kind and polite to everyone. Even if they do not deserve it (in your mind). Do it because you deserve to continue to evolve as a vibrant human being who is perpetually seeking to grow.

Happy Saturday!

Please follow and like us: