Being Good When Everyone Is Horrible
The difficult art of being good in a dreadful world.
Recently I landed a job in the customer service industry, and upon interviewing and discussing the industry, my hiring manager said something simple that has stuck with me ever since: “People are horrible.”
Three simple words, all true. But also untrue.
I’m a cashier, so in my job I work with hundreds of people coming in and out of my store. I smile, I greet, I ask them how they are. Sometimes they’re enthusiastic. Sometimes they’re tired. Nervous. Scared, even.
Sometimes they’re frustrated with waiting and take their frustration out on me. Maybe they steal. Or maybe they’re high as a kite when they buy 4 cans of Monster energy drinks and don’t even notice me as a human being.
People can be horrible, but I’ve found that if you seek to find evil in others, you will sure as hell find it because perfection is nothing short of impossible.
Seek the Good
I’ve been told I try to find the good in others even when someone just seems to be an empty, black-hearted shell of a mortal. It is when people are living their darkest moments that they appear dead to the world. People make assumptions: You’re scowling at me? You’re not worth smiling at. You just yelled at me? What an awful person. You keep leaving dishes in the sink. You just want to make my life miserable, don’t you?
Oftentimes it’s easy to assume the worst, so I try to assume the best.
I like the saying give them the benefit of the doubt because it speaks of second chances, of new beginnings when something goes wrong. Instead of reacting negatively, of scowling back and taking vengeance, think about that person. Give them a second chance. Take a second thought: Maybe your scowling barista just received word that his father passed away. Maybe that kid who ran in front of your car lost his dog.
Maybe that mother slamming her purse on the counter just spent two hours waiting for the pediatrician to refill her medication, and her baby is crying and she just wants to freaking go home for the day because she hasn’t rested her feet for 12 hours since the baby woke up at 4 am.
And I’m not talking about giving only strangers the benefit of the doubt. I’m talking family. I’m talking friends. People you’ve known for so long that you never think about giving them the benefit of the doubt because they know exactly what they’re doing wrong. I’m talking those people who push that Red Button, the one thing you know they know makes you madder than Hades: leaving dishes in the sink, talking behind your back, arguing with you just to get you riled up. Those people.
Give them the benefit of the doubt. Next time your roommate leaves her clothes all over the couch, think second chance and ask about it. You might learn she was so stressed from work and anxiety and depression that she couldn’t function enough to fold her laundry last night.
Seek the good in others. Sometimes if you look hard enough, you’ll find it.
Show the Good
People can be horrible, but that doesn’t mean you have to be horrible. Simple concept, but it can be harder than ever to apply it. For me, it’s hard to be kind to others, to show that extra step of goodness, when most of the people who grace my metaphorical doorstep are strangers.
In my job it’s easy to get bogged down with the monotony of empty small talk.
The how-are-you-yes-im-fine-thanks-bye of the customer service industry murders my mood. That’s because it feels empty and inauthentic when I greet these strangers. Do I really care about this woman in front of me buying Miralax? Not in the slightest.
I have to take an extra step of asking for the story behind it all. An intentional, “How are you today?” reveals that this woman is actually buying Miralax for her cat. “It works wonders,” she said to me, excited that I’d asked. “And I ignored the vet for ages until I tried it recently!”
When you talk with people, when you intentionally be good to them, you learn things. I learn the stories of my customers. I learn that she’s purchasing 10 ice cream cones for the kids having a nail polish party. He’s buying a biscuit for the rescue dog waiting outside. This mom is buying a card and some candy for her kid’s graduation in 15 minutes. All I have to do is ask — and having someone ask about their life can make their day infinitely better: I see the evidence in the flash of a mom’s smile or the guffaw of an elderly woman when I crack a joke about teenagers.
I ask, I engage. I strive to show the good.
Being kind or good or great is not easy. It takes practice. Practice to see past the evil in people and seek out the good. Practice to ask more about their motives, to be engaged with them. Being good is an exercise in patience: I must go to work with the intention to be good. And I must remind myself again. And again. And again.
I always remind myself that I will never regret a kindness I show to others. But I will regret a kindness I could have shown but didn’t.
Be good to someone, and you both will be the better for it.
