I believe the reason we are on this big blue spinning marble is to help others. Yes, to advance mankind, create new and amazing things, find love, and repopulate the earth.
If you make something beautiful for someone else, even if it is only for a moment, with a single word or small action, you have done a great service because life can be ugly and frustrating for so many.
Here is a one-step procedure to improve the lives of others: be kind.
We do not know the burdens others carry: the heartache, the physical or emotional pain someone is going through when we cross paths. We are placed in other’s paths who need our talents and gifts, and others are placed in our path who have talents and gifts we need. There are no neutral interactions in life, and, boy-howdy, understanding that, straightened out my little red wagon.
Giving flowers is better than talking about flowers. A poem about flowers may even be better than flowers in a vase. A child’s drawing of flowers would top all of those. A handful of your neighbors uprooted daisies in the clutched fist of your grandchild is the Mardi Gras of gifts.
Doing something beautiful can be as simple as holding a door for someone with their arms full, holding an elevator when a frazzled co-worker is racing toward it, letting a car in front of you in traffic, and withholding a snarky comment when one would fit so well.
Here is the kicker: when you do or say this beautiful thing you do not need acknowledgment or proof you did it. The anonymous word, words or action is your little victory; your moment in your sun. No one can take it away, smear it or claim credit. Oh, they may try to take credit. They may say, “I picked up the trash in the kitchen,” when it was you, but you know the truth and they certainly know the truth.
Do better. Be better. Use your God-given talents. I tell our kids to sing. They have musical talent that brings joy to others. I enjoy the enthusiasm “bad” singers bring as well. Singing is making them happy, so sing.
I wrote earlier that life can be ugly and frustrating for so many. Seeing the ugly side of something can be scarring and soul shaking. The level of ugly I was reaching for includes everything from “Shucks, I’m having a case of the Mondays” to an existence that involves violence, trauma, abandonment; real bad stuff — people walking around carrying a cross the size of the Redwoods.
Occasionally the good thing you do does not penetrate the hard shell some people had to develop to survive. You hold a door open for someone and they breeze straight through, with nary a word. This happened to me relatively recently. I was tempted to think negatively of the person who failed to say thank you, but I stopped myself. Who knows what that person was dealing with at the moment? I do not know what they were going through. I do not hold doors for praise. I do it for convenience, manners, kindness. I do it for me and their apparent grumpiness cannot diminish my internal motivation.
If we consider every interaction we have as important for us and the other people we encounter, and every word or action as mood altering for us or them, I believe we will sit up straighter, pick-up litter, not toss litter, hold doors, hold elevators, be kinder, more patient… and this will help us all on our way to being a better people.
(William Fer is a member of St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Davenport. He works as a Patient Safety and Accreditation Specialist at UnityPoint Health Trinity in Rock Island, Illinois.)
