Sitting on the Porch

From birth to death, the path we take intersects the paths of thousands of others.  It is an infinite latticework of paths meeting and diverging.

On our paths we encounter some people only for a split second.  We are with others for minutes, weeks or years, and still others for a lifetime. But what is certain is that we will eventually part company with everyone we meet. When paths converge, even for a second, do we make the lives of others better or worse?

Ok, so I’m a “glass half full” person, except for those few times when I’ve thought that the glass was half full of poison. Not counting those times, I like to think we might have a positive effect on the world if we try to leave others better off than they were before they met us, regardless of whether that person is a spouse, family member, friend, business associate, casual acquaintance or total stranger.

In my world I still have a half-full hope that I can change the world by being nice to people, even (gack!) people that I don’t like to be around. While on my path did I remember my friends’ birthdays or ask them about their kids or their health? At home did I put the toilet seat down?  When in public did I smile as I passed someone in an elevator or say “good morning” to a stranger I passed in the aisle of the store?  What about the people that I don’t even know are watching me?  Did someone see me open the door for that lady at the post office, or did someone notice that I gave up a good parking space for someone else?

Or while on my path, did I cut someone off in traffic or rush to get in line before them at the grocery store (that’s not a great example because my line will be the slowest). At home, did I make off with the last Snickerdoodle?  Did I eat an entire jar (the last one on earth) of my wife’s late aunt’s homemade salt pickles made from a recipe that doesn’t exist anymore? There is a dreadful and horrible reason for that example to be so specific but just for clarity it only involves me as a spectator.

Side note: My friend Jeff Cavins said that “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison, hoping your enemy will die.” His Blog is here.

And such is my happy logic. Since past performance is probably a good indicator of future behavior I expect to have failure and success, but maybe trying to stay aware of the concept will make for more successes.  Although I won’t be saving the world right off the bat, I can try to keep my corner of it clean, and I might even be better for having made the attempt.

So in my quest to save the world by being nice to people, one of these statements will always be true when computing my success/failure ratio:

1. I’m not the fabulous person I think I am, or
2. I’m not the fabulous person others think I am

There are lots of smarter, older, more popular and deader people than me who thought that being nice was a good thing. The concept of Karma has been around since a thousand years before Christ and is embraced by major world religions. It holds that our current deeds actively shape our past, present and future experiences. The quote attributed to Confucius as early as 500 BC is “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.” Paul’s letter to the Galatians (v6:7) says “You reap what you sow.” When we were kids we learned that the Golden Rule is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and in the South we knew that “what goes around comes around.”

With a pedigree as long as that I should seriously pay more attention to the concept. So moving forward, when I interact with someone for a lifetime or for a second, I promise to try and be nice.