On Kindness

I really don't want to get up on a soap box - because trust me, I have my moments-  if there were a microphone in the car broadcasting what I *actually* said as I drove to work in the morning, Oh Lordy it would make a sailor blush.

But recently Ive noticed that there is a sudden outbreak of inconsiderate people. Case in point-  I'm at Lifetime on Saturday, swimming.  The inside lap lanes are closed for fall maintenance to drain/clean the pools etc.  I did not know this when I went there Saturday morning.  They tell me I can use the outside lanes, if I dont mind swimming in cold water.  Well- I'm used to swimming in their inside lap lanes so it can't be any colder than that (it was slightly chilly on Saturday early morning and before the sun came out the water was in fact, rather chilly)

I did most of my workout totally alone-  and with about fifteen minutes left of my workout, a man comes in and joins me in the next lane.  I warn him that the water is ridiculously cold and that he should just jump in and get the shock of the cold over.  So we strike up a convo as we take our "rests"  and we start to talk about the inside lanes being cold- which moves into why they needed to shut down the pool for cleaning.   I say "its probably all that sweat from the Ironmen training these last few weeks before the big race that dirtied up the water (referring to Ironman Wisconsin which was just this past weekend)  to which he replies "Nah, it was probably all those fat ladies getting all sweaty jumping around doing their water aerobics"  there is a pause,  and then he says... "no offense".  To which I replied, well- I'm sure those "fat ladies" don't have three Triathlon medals, so none taken-  and pushed off the wall and finished my swim.

But seriously- I wasn't offended so this isn't a "oh how mean that the guy called me fat" story  its more of a -  who says something like that in the company of strangers?  It's amazing to me that people think that's okay.

Fast Forward to today.  I'm at Target buying a birthday present for a co-worker.  I literally have three items in my hand- 2 presents and a card.  I'm walking down the aisles looking for an open checkout.  There is a woman coming from the other end, who clearly makes eye contact with me, knows that I am heading for a checkout stand, speeds up, pops a wheelie on her over-burdened cart and cuts in front of me.  Seriously? I have three items- which took me all of a minute and a half to scan and pay for-  she, had a cart full of items that took her probably five minutes to ring and pay for.  Would it have killed her to wait the extra minute and let me go ahead of her?  If the shoe were on the other foot- I would have totally let her in front of me.

It goes back to that whole "tunnel vision" thing I talked about on Monday.  Are we so hyper focused and in our own world that we really have forgotten that we share this planet with other people?

I think that this week while we're working on our outer selves, we should do some pruning on our inner selves as well.  I challenge all of you to put someone else before yourself just once this week.  Whether it's letting someone in front of you at the grocery store,  sending a card to let someone know you're thinking of them, or grabbing a cup of coffee for a co-worker when you make your way into the kitchen.  Let's all try to reach out a little bit for the remainder of this week and remind people that we're aren't alone on this planet :)

While I was ruminating on how to present this topic, I actually found a website dedicated to the topic.  Its Do 1 Nice Thing    Empowering Kindness Every Week.  So with this website in mind, I will post the nice thing that I did each week as part of pruning my inner garden -  and hopefully you will let me know what you did as well!