Choose Kind – Part II

I just got home from doing some speaking, and that interaction with people who really want to know more about empathy is one of my favorite things.  I get to meet people, go places I’ve never been, and be a part of the world.  I never know what connections we’ll create, and where it will all lead.  I feel like I get to put everything I talk about into practice and pass it on, and that’s what I live for.

But there’s one thing that I dread every time: the airport.  Sometimes I’m amazed by the kindness that can happen there, but more often than not, I’m faced with inhumanity for no reason other than an inability to get out of our own heads, and it makes me wonder if I should be trying to get my message out there in a different way (like renting a billboard in O’Hare by the American Airline gates).  

We talked about nice vs. kind in my last newsletter, but I think it’s worth continuing the conversation.  ‘Nice’ is a social convention.  We do it to grease the wheels of human interaction, and that’s it.  When it comes down to it, we do ‘nice’ when we want to make our lives more comfortable and get things done in a socially acceptable way.  It’s smooth, it’s routine, and it’s acceptable.  Don’t get me wrong, it works and we need it to keep society running, but it’s not the same as being kind.

Kindness is when our focus is on the other person.  Kind can be uncomfortable, but it always keeps the other person in the spotlight.  Kind shows up when we really want what’s best for the other.  Kind has depth, and feeling, and might even be painful at times, but it’s always very real, very raw, and very human.  Nice is just…nice.

I saw plenty of ‘nice’ in the airport: people saying polite things like please and thank you, have a nice trip, thank you for flying Flutterby Airlines.  But in the same breath these people could be completely unkind.  No eye contact, and no real care.  Getting snappy at questions or if a person wasn’t moving fast enough or falling immediately in line.  Ignoring those that truly needed help (TSA guy that yelled at the lady in the wheelchair in Milwaukee, I’m looking at you). Going through entire careers with no real connection.  Is this how we want to live?

And it’s not just employees.  People pushing to get to the front of the airplane while others with kids struggle.  People running one another down to get on the airplane (ummm, we’re going to the same place). People watching others in difficulty and pretending not to see or, even worse, adding to the problem.

Flying always gives me something to write about – and think about – but not always in a good way.  I have to wonder if this is how our society is now, and it just makes me sad.  The hardest part is that once I enter the Thunderdome that is modern travel, I begin to lose my own empathy, and if that’s happening to me, I know it’s happening to others.  

Is this really what we want?  And if so, where does it end?