It's Lacking

 Kindness is lacking these days.  It was noted among Sputhwest passengers how kind an agent for Southwest was to passengers waiting for a flight.  This shouldn't even be newsworthy but it was.  Just because his kindness was noted by many.  Anyone who has dealt with any customer service related problem knows that kindness is lacking.  But really this shouldn't even be a thing.  But it is.

I'm not sure I can write a whole article on kindness.  I wrote about love vs. hate recently, but my thinking is that people just wear out those whose intentions are good, but people in such professions simply get wore down.  Where is the kindness?  We've taken it away from each other.  I see things just getting worse.  So, in today's world it seems kindness is a thing.  But my point is that it shouldn't be.  We almost expect customer service to be rude and uncaring.  And too often they are.  But why?

I hate to refer to the preacher of good intentions, Norman Vincent Peale, but back in the day where influencing people with kindness, is no longer important, everyone wants to be the bully and NOT the victim.  I read that studies have shown that the bullies are those who have had the success in corporate board rooms, while their victims are the ones stuck in the lower paying jobs.  It seems studies have borne this out.  

So, do we encourage bullying for monetary gains?  This is the dilemma of parents and schools today.  Do we encourage bullying for success in life?  Has it finally come to this?  What of this report at Southwestern.  Is his kindness going to keep him at this lower paying job because he's not a bully?  Does it actually require bullying for success in life?  In today's world we might say it's survival of the fittest.  

My wife liked my article on love vs. hate the other morning.  Has the world become the WWE of life?  One might think so.  This is why acts of kindness stand out.  Are those who make victims of road rage incidents heros to some?  One might think so.  Why IS kindness a thing to be noticed?  Because any longer it's out of the ordinary.  But it shouldn't be.  We no longer expect kindness from anyone.  

My wife and I were in the grocery store not long ago and she struck up a conversation with a lady in front of her who had a bouquet of tulips in her order.  I'm not sure what my wife said exactly, but after the order was rung up, the lady turned to her, gave her the bouquet and simply said, "These are for you."  I told my wife later maybe she bought them just to give them away.  She was an older well-dressed lady and giving away an $8 gift was no big deal to her.

We don't know what her motivation was to give my wife her bouquet, but she did.  I won't question her motive, but it was such a simple act we knew she could afford.  My wife brought the bouquet home and kept them in a vase for a number of days.  But even thinking about her kindness as I share this is heart-warming.  I've heard of many stories about what happens in check-outs in grocery stores, but I never gave it much thought until then.  Things do happen in grocery check-out lines.  I'm sure grocery clerks have many stories both good and bad.

It's just that kindness shouldn't be noted as something out of the ordinary.  But when it does happen, it just seems to be something unusual.  Kindness shouldn't be unusual and THAT is my point this morning.  This blog is written with the unusual in mind.  But it's not unusual for me to be smoking a pipe while writing.  I'm smoking my Peterson System pipe this morning with some Morning Sunrise English tobacco by Sutliff of with a cup of black Eithiopian coffee.  Thank you for your time and Peace to each one of you.

Dave