So, time passes, and things we think we remember well, often are fragmented by time. I remember my grandpa saying something like "it's easy to be pleasant, but it takes work to be a horse's ass." As I sit here thinking about it, to me it seems like that statement should go in reverse, but there's no one handy to verify the saying.
Some days, I think it's easy to get caught up in things that aren't going well or right for us, and it's easy to give in to that and let it color the way we treat people around us. We don't necessarily intend to be mean or unhelpful, we just are. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, because for the last few months, a lot of things have been going really right for me that hadn't been, and I'm protective of that sea change.
I know there always will be bumps in the road, no matter how smooth the resurfacing job has been, but maybe it's not surprising that when I'm happy, I want others around me to be happy as well. I don't want one person's thoughtlessness stepping on someone I care about, because then there are three people who aren't on smooth footing--the person getting stepped on, the person doing the stepping, and me. There are probably others who are noting those moments and feeling those things too, but when you come out of the wilderness, it's almost like breathing clean air for the first time--you never want to give that up.
It's hard to just be nice, especially on a bad day, or minimally a day when you don't feel your best and nothing seems to be adding up. Today was kind of like that. It was so much work just to plow through the day that I barely had anything left in the tank for cordial, let alone nice.
On the way home, however, I thought about it. Someone I work with is going through a really worrisome situation. I'm not particularly close to this person. In fact, most of the time she drives me pretty crazy. But, I thought, "you know what, I could at least lend her a little hand." And so I did. It may not make a lot of difference, but at the end of the day, you spend more time with the people you work with than your own family most of the time, why can't we just be nice to each other?
Sometimes it's envy. The person you can't bear to be nice to has something going for them that you wish you had. As with Rosalie in "Eclipse," when she tells Bella that choosing to become a vampire is the biggest mistake she could make and that she would give anything to be in Bella's position so she could choose to live and have a real life. Immortality and ridiculous beauty evidently aren't everything they're cracked up to be.
Sometimes it's personality clashes. You just can't mesh with the other person, no matter how you might think you've tried. You may go out of your way to try and mold yourself to fit what works for the other person, but it's so far out of the realm of possibility that it just can't ever happen. It will always be a strain.
Sometimes we don't understand the words we say and the way we say them don't come across the way we mean them. We use sarcasm and humor to try and fit into situations that are hard for us because we don't have better tools. And we don't recognize when our efforts go awry and we've hurt or irritated others. I know I'm guilty of that from time to time.
But I think most of the time it's simple thoughtlessness. Thoughtless sounds like a really mean word, until you break it down. It truly just means 'without thought.' It's not because we don't like each other or we want to make things harder on each other, it's just that we act without thought.
When you're the recipient of 'the mean,' it's pretty hard to consider that maybe, just maybe no harm was intended.
I don't know if letting go of the difficult day and the way I was feeling will make any difference for my co-worker, but, I know if I were in her shoes, I would hope that someone would reach out and try to help me too--whether they like me or not.
How to Save a Life--The Fray
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