In Times Like These We Need Love

In+Times+Like+These+We+Need+Love

Cade Campbell, Writer

The lines in a grocery nowadays can be long. There are usually glass bottles of Topo Chico water being spilt and sugar or flour all over the floor on the baking aisle. People are usually in a rush to get all their groceries so that they can get through the lines and home as fast as possible. They get frustrated when they can’t find something they want, they get impatient. That on top of the heat they feel by being in a building with many people creates more frustration. 

 

Some people are able to just stay relaxed and act like nothing is going on. But there are some people, not just in stores, but all over the world and the internet, that are being mean to others. During this worldwide pandemic and health what we need is kindness beyond belief, rather than selfishness and a lack of self-control. 

 

Something I don’t think we notice is truly just how much actions and words do affect other people. It may not affect them emotionally per se, but being both extremely kind and extremely mean leaves that impression of you burnt into their memory. So whenever someone thinks about you they think,  “Oh yeah that person was the one person that helped me pick up the mess I made whenever everyone else stood and laughed,” or they think, “That person bumped into me at the store and was the one to cuss me out.” There’s so much time now to think as well. Sometimes those thoughts can roll around in people’s minds, the memory can be branded there. Depending on how nice or mean you are the greater the effectaffect of that memory and their view on you. 

 

Now, this doesn’t just relate to the coronavirus epidemic and this whole issue we unfortunately have to go through right now. No, this is something that relates to the average day. It has in the past, it will in the future, and it does now.

 

Also, I’m not necessarily talking about people being excruciatingly mean at this time either. People who do that will do that anytime. I don’t mean “13 Reasons Why” type events. I’m just talking about something that can cause someone to have a bad day, not a bad life. I’m also not talking about giving away your life savings either, because well, that’s extreme. I just mean a kindness that could make someone’s day. That’s all. The world just needs a little more light to push back the dark. You can be that light, I can be that light, we can all be that light. 

 

Being selfless calls for more than one may think. It does actually require bravery, for being different is scary sometimes. It’s hard to be kind, it really is. We all want to think it’s easy and we all want to think we’re kind, but that’s what we want to think. It could be completely different than how our day to day attitude actually is. 

 

What I’ve noticed these past few weeks is that, yes, we’ve lost physical contact with people and we’ve lost our daily routines, but we’ve lost more than that. Some people have lost their kindness, some people have lost civility. Civility is usually the biggest thing tested amongst worldly crises such as these, as is seen in many films, novels, and other forms of entertainment. Those things aren’t just entertainment. Many storytellers use what they know in reality to depict fiction, and what we’ve seen will be true. If we fail each other and ourselves and don’t try to be kind, the worse this thing gets the worse we will get. 

 

I certainly don’t want that to happen and I don’t think you do either. It may sound extremely cliche, and I hate sounding cliche, but it’s true. We are all going through the same thing, so next time you feel you’re losing patience or you’re getting frustrated just try to push it down. Be kind to the other person. You don’t have to give them the last box of Eggos at the grocery store, but you don’t have to lunge for it. It is what it is and we can’t change that. But we can change ourselves. Be bigger. Be better.