Picture this: You're at the grocery store and the person is complaining to the person running the register for being slow. Or you're driving and the person in the car behind you is pissed that you're going 10 mph over the speed limit instead of 25 mph. Or you're ordering food and the server is short/rude. These people all have stories and you have a choice. The first person, you could argue with them to stop or just let them go about their day and apologize to the cashier for them. The person in the car, you flip them off (or giving a thumbs down, worse IMO) or just let them go about their drive. The server, complain to their manager or tip them normally. Each of these individual people is going through something. The person at the grocery store is running late for a dinner they are hosting but they honestly, don't want to host. The person in the car just found out that their loved one is hospitalized. The server just found out they got cheated on and that they may not have enough money for rent. You never know someone else's reality.
On a more personal level - your friend is being short with you. Your boss is micromanaging you and insisting on meeting an impossible deadline. Your partner is continually giving 5% and you are giving 95%. You may, or may not know what they are dealing with, but you choose to be kind as opposed to ruining that relationship.
My frustration and what urged me to right this article is far deeper than the grocery store clerk or a speedy driver, or a boss that is on my booty. This article is not about that. I am someone who puts a lot of effort and love into my interpersonal relationships. I keep coming back to the continuous, harsh cycle of feeling like I am far too good towards those who do not return any of what I put into them. I keep finding myself being angry. It makes me want to be a different type of person...a douchebag, if you will. I sometimes find myself wishing that I was mean, less giving, cold. I keep getting to that point, but I am entirely unable to abandon myself. I am lucky to have been instilled with good morals. I am lucky to have been fortunate enough to have the resources and resiliency to heal from my trauma. I am lucky to be a healed human, but goddamn I worked so hard. I earned that. And I keep coming back to this anger after certain circumstances, where I forget where I came from. I grew too much and I did the excruciatingly hard work to find myself. No one will take that from me. No one will take my goodness.
I believe that hurtful people are typically a product of their experiences or environment. At one point, someone hardened them so terribly that they abandoned the good. (Now... this does not apply to the kid in Kindergarten who punched me straight in the stomach for no reason. He does not get that exception). Nurture vs Nature, a decades long debate in regards to if the people/environment/experiences around you contribute to your character or if it is inherent at birth. Both play a roll in one way or another, but I do believe that hurt people hurt people. In my experiences, the people who I have truly felt like I got to know on a deeper level were the ones who hurt me. The common denominator - they were facing their own battles. Now... that is no damn excuse to act careless, to be mean, to break loyalty, or take advantage of someone.
It is no one else's responsibility to heal you from your trauma. It is no one else's burden to take the blow from your lack of self-love or lack of healing.
It *should* not hurt to leave a relationship knowing that were good to someone else. It certainly does though, and that is something I am learning to take the blame off of myself for. It is not my, or your, fault that you chose to be good. You chose love. You chose honesty. You chose kindness. You chose to be real. That is the difference between people who are healed and people who are unhealed**. That is the difference between people who choose to see the good and act on it, and the people who contribute nothing but negativity to those around them.
** You can still be unhealed and choose kindness. There are many more unhealed people who choose that. But there are plenty of people who do not, and those people are the one's who are making their own problems, other peoples problems.**
I listened to a podcast a while back that has really stuck with me. The podcast was discussing that you are never in control of what comes to you, but you are in control of what comes out of you. What comes out of you is typically what is inside of you. You are the product of what you put out into the world.
There is so much importance placed on physical appearance, when in reality none of that matters. You are only as pretty as what you put out into the world. There is nothing more beautiful than a human who has the strength to overcome their battles, heal from it, and still choose to give goodness to the world around them. That is beauty.
I hope to be beautiful, in that aspect. I hope to always be beautiful and pure and kind. I hope to never choose to be ugly - to be mean, to be harsh, to be disloyal. I hope the same for the people I surround myself with. If not, at a bare minimum, I know I was good to those around me. I chose to see the positives. I chose to act in a loving manner. I allowed beauty to enter the world through my actions & words, even when it was not returned to me.
So that is the thing about goodness. It will always come back to you. Even if not directly, you can know that in every moment you chose kindness - you became more beautiful. You became more real. More human. You became a more honest version of what is within you. Much more than anyone who chooses to be hurtful. Who chooses to take advantage of your kindness. Who chooses to actively deny you of that same kindness.
Goodness is something that is never guaranteed to return, but how awesome is it to give with no knowledge of if it will return to you. How awesome is it to give kindness to that woman in the grocery store, that speed racer on the highway, anyone. You never know how badly someone needed that kindness. And in relationships, when someone treats you 'wrong' but you still continued to be kind to them - maybe you will be their catalyst for healing. Maybe you are the person that makes them realize the pain they are causing others. Maybe you will be the one who helps them find healing so that they can bring beauty to other people's lives.
You choose the imprint you leave on those around you, make it a good one.
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