Scrolling through the seemingly endless pages of the Daily Beast or the NY Times, we’re pounded in one way or another by humanity’s capacity for cruelty (Rebecca Ann Sedwick comes to mind). But earlier tonight, my friend helped shed light on our capacity to strive for authentic kindness.
It all started off with several questions packed into one unbroken outpour: Jane, why are we negative… I mean, why do we focus on the bad when there’s so much good around us? I’m in med school, but even just last week, I felt totally discouraged by school, by the people around me,… how come we try to outdo others, be better-looking than others, put other people down to get to that place? All of these questions, though simple in nature, are ones that necessitate complicated, multifaceted answers that go beyond a packaged response of “because of reasons 1, 2, and 3”.
Regardless, let me attempt to share with you the end result of our conversation. Ultimately, we didn’t reach any profound realization, but isn’t it so, so wonderful to have conversations like these occasionally? That is what I desire to share with you in this space. A reminder to be good, to hold yourself accountable to a higher moral ground.
To be an authentically good person requires foregoing some of the pleasures that accompany conforming to the crowd. We all enjoy inclusion- it’s simply the reality. And from my personal experience, inclusion greatly involves targeted gossip that can often times become malicious. But before you pass judgment, talk smack, or passively participate in the gossip, why not take a hot sec to pause and think about that individual- he or she is unconditionally loved by a parent, a sibling, or a significant other.
