What We Talk About When We Talk About Hate: The Power of Patience and Perspective
By Alex Witkowski, Social Media and Community Manager
If you ever want to try your patience, walk through Midtown, New York on a rainy day.
You won’t make it an entire block without being struck by an umbrella. Cars and bicycles kick up puddle water and soak you with seemingly deliberate precision. And the flu-like symptoms that manifest in the close quarters of a subway can make it hard to get home with the same smile you were wearing when you left.
These are the moments when we may feel tempted to nudge a slow walker out of the way, glare at anyone whose preoccupation with their phone is impeding our progress, and finally mumble under our breath, “I hate people.”
It’s a statement we might believe in that moment, when our judgment is clouded by the fact that we feel as if we have been disregarded or ignored. And it’s an entirely human reaction: to respond in kind to how we feel we are being treated. Even the best of us can succumb to this sort of social exhaustion — a loss of the patience that regularly gets us through our days. But if we catch ourselves saying it or even simply thinking it, it’s important to realize the truth about this response: we don’t actually mean it.
When we feel compelled to say, “I hate people,” what we often mean is, “I don’t understand why someone would act this way,” or, “Why don’t some people seem to care more?” Of course these don’t roll off the tongue the same way, but they may express our emotions more accurately.
We know that our experiences with a handful of individuals are not representative of an entire population. If on any given day we encounter a few people whose actions seem inconsiderate or selfish, we have passed far more whose actions were too unremarkable to note. They exhibited precisely the kind of courtesy that we hope to get from people: the kind that is invisible.
The sometimes impossible-seeming notion that the world is good at its core is much easier to believe when we can treat the commonplace — everyday cordial and respectful behavior — as something spectacular. Of course this is not to suggest that the simplest human acts merit overwhelming celebration, but rather that these small, isolated moments demand more of us than we initially realize.
We are each living a unique story with conflicts and obstacles most of the world will never know, and each of us is equipped differently to handle these things. Even when we are unable to address these challenges, we spend much of our time turning them over in our minds, preparing for tasks we know are coming and preempting the dangers we fear. When we have the presence of mind to pause and hold a door for a stranger, pick up an item someone dropped, or step out of the way for someone in a hurry, we are, in that moment, prioritizing another’s convenience over our own — overcoming our own preoccupations to affirm another’s value. We are, in a small way, contributing to a kinder and more patient world.
But what of those we have in mind when we claim that we “hate people?” What about the ones whose actions elicit that response from us because they lack the courtesy we feel we deserve?
If we frame these instances differently, they take on a very different identity. Consider, for example, a truly bad day you’ve had: a moment in your life when you were confronted with hopelessness, anxiety, regret. The type of day when you realize you made it to your destination with no recollection of how you got there because you were too busy thinking through your life to be aware of what goes on outside of it.
If we acknowledge not only that a day like this makes it difficult to escape outside of our own minds, but also that we can forgive ourselves for experiencing this struggle, we can see others’ realities differently. We can imagine, despite our limited knowledge of any given stranger, that the only reason this person may have overlooked an opportunity for kindness is that he or she was going through a period as overwhelming as one which we have experienced, which we have seen someone we care about experience, or which we are fortunate enough to never have gone through at all.
In each of these difficult encounters, then, the question should not be, “Does this person deserve my patience?” but rather, “Do I have the strength in this moment to offer patience?” Am I at a period in my life when I have the calm and perspective to see seemingly selfish behavior as simply a symptom of the very human hurdles we all periodically face and fall victim to? Can I extend the kind of understanding I hope to receive when I have a tough day?
In respecting the challenges others may be experiencing, we need to be willing to adopt a challenge of our own: recognizing when we are on the verge of reacting too strongly instead of giving someone the space to think through their lives without being disrupted by preventable hostility. It is an act of kindness that will almost certainly go unnoticed, because its nature is the absence of a negative and not necessarily the presence of a positive. But in its cumulative effect it is a significant contribution to our social environment.
Much of our beauty can be found in our depth. If we were always simple people, always easy to understand, our stories and experiences would not be as compelling as they can be. They would not be the same source of great art and inspiration for the world. But this depth can also lead to profound misunderstandings.
The solution, in part, is to embrace our uncertainty of others and their motives rather than attempt to imagine them based on our assumptions. To offer others the best parts of ourselves and presume that they have done enough to deserve this. To believe that in their easier moments, these individuals can be counted on to do the same for us, to forgive us for our common weaknesses and grant us understanding with the knowledge that we may never realize what they have done for us. We don’t “hate people.” We love them enough to expect great things from them. And when we willingly share a common humanity — one that is characterized by all the warts and scars that come with living — we can invest in others’ happiness with the comfort of knowing that others will invest the same in us.
