Last Minute Holiday Errands? Be Nice On The Safe Side

I saw a post on Twitter the other day that encouraged us to be nicer than we feel we need to be with people we come across, because they likely have more going on in their world than we are aware of. That’s not only a pleasant idea, it’s also probably very true.

A waitress that’s a little crabby, the bank teller that seemed distracted, a cashier that didn’t seem to be listening to us, the co-worker that was abrubt with you. It’s very easy to roll our eyes, get frustrated, judge, and get angry. We even have a tendancy to take their actions and make them about us, taking them personally…even though they didn’t even really know a thing about who we are.

By the way, the waitress just received a call from her child’s school about a playground injury. The bank teller’s husband was diagnosed with cancer yesterday. The cashier was in a car accident on the way in to work today. And the co-worker’s wife was just laid off, and making their mortgage payment seems to be in question.

They could each have used a little extra kindness from us, but how in the world could we have known what they were going through? The answer is that we couldn’t have. That’s why: we should be nicer than we feel we have to be with people we come across, because they likely have more going on in their world than we are aware of.

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