The Necessity of Being Unkind

I will not sit here and claim to be perfect, but my moral compass is very simple: the golden rule is the answer to kindness. If your goal is to be a kind person, it’s as easy as treating people the way you wish they would treat you. 

I have tried to live by this as best as I could in the last few years: but obviously I haven’t been perfect at it. There was a lot of anger and sadness within me especially in my youth and I have not had an inch of support from any direction. I find relationships difficult because being wanted and or needed has made me uncomfortable as both an only child and an ex-cult member. (Okay maybe it was more like intense Christianity, but I think the trauma is the same either way.)

I’ve read a lot in coping mechanisms and I do agree that my circumstances are the perfect storm for building a narcissist: and I think that’s where my morality hits a crossroads. I am too aware of the fact that I could slip into narcissism. In fact, I specifically must put effort into not being a narcissist. But I don’t think anyone should be overthinking this hard about their personality. I wish I could just let go and not be aware of the things that make me a bad person but I am, and I will never relate to anyone because of it.

There’s only two other people: well adjusted folks who don’t care very much about which aspects of their personality could be perceived as unsavory, and those who are just as non-adjusted as I am but don’t care about trying to change.

It’s frustrating to feel like I’m the only one who is trying. Again I’m not saying I am the kindest, I am just saying that it’s frustrating to know others don’t even have the intent. If I choose to let go and just succumb to my negative traits it would feel like my intent is to be a bad person on purpose and that’s the complete opposite of the golden rule.

But being kind to everyone is taxing. Being understanding takes effort and to do that with every person you meet is taxing. Here is the difficult truth: not everyone should be treated with unconditional kindness. Some people don’t have the intent to treat you with kindness, and meeting them so gently will enable them to continue to treat you badly.

The most difficult part of the golden rule for me is the fact that I can’t help but treat people the way they treat me sometimes. The moment someone raises their voice at me I will do it too and suddenly I am the problem. I am the only and sole problem in that situation solely because the other party had no intent to be kind to begin with. There is no moral failing on their end, because they never set that rule for themselves. So they will not think about how they raised their voice but they will think about how I raised mine. I cannot think about how they raised their voice because I’m thinking about how I only have control over my own actions. To us both, I will be the one who lost my temper.

I’ve come to the realization that some people deserve your kindness and others deserve to have a mirror held to them. 

I have no intention to be a leader, but in situations where there are no leaders present or the only other person is a tyrant, if you are the only one who can view the situations both internally and externally, you may have to be the one to step up.

I’ve learned this in situations like the when we were young your, when the lack of direction from security often made things worse. Sometimes you’re going to have to be the one to yell out instructions to get everyone out of a tight crowd trying to exist the pit. No one else will do it and people will either end up getting stuck there forever or crushed to death.

When I say someone should call the shots: I don’t mean someone should impose their will on others- I think being a leader is more about the willingness to guide people through a maze, not convincing them of the benefits of just living in that maze at your will. It isn’t about telling people what to do but figuring out how to get something that everyone wants done and then relaying those instructions. It’s about seeing the bigger picture that everyone created and telling them how to put the pieces together.

Some people will insist that their pieces are in the wrong places and sometimes kindness can’t convince them otherwise. Sometimes people will think it’s funny to ruin the picture and kindness will not change their mind.