A kind person is cautious of making snap judgments of others. They understand that humans are a mystery. They understand they can never know the whole picture of the inner workings of the mind and emotions of any other person. They can never really know what formed others’ thoughts and feelings or motivated their actions. They may have only the faintest outlines of the trials and tribulations that grew out of that individual’s personal history. So a kind person doesn’t make assumptions about anyone until they know. They resist harsh judgments. They try to refrain from blame.
There is no way you can know that the driver who cuts in front of your car on the highway is in a panic trying to get his pregnant wife to the hospital. Or that the child having a loud tantrum in the park is in pain from an impacted tooth. Or the impatient waitress is exhausted near the end of working a double shift and her feet are killing her. Or the short-tempered boss is anxious because he has recently learned his mother has been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. You don’t know these things until you know. And if you knew, it might soften your judgements, increase your patience.
The Native American saying, “You can never know another person until you walk a mile in their moccasins” is so true.
There is one assumption that kindness makes. That assumption is: to be human is to be fallible. All of us are fragile, fearful. We have all been wounded. Every one of us is suffering to one degree or another. It is the human condition. To see the human condition of another person invites compassion. Having compassion invites kindness. Having kindness invites the willingness to form loving human connection, person to person.
When we come from the place of Don’t assume, Don’t judge, Don’t blame, it is so much easier to be kind and to make that person-to-person human connection.
Here’s a story about making assumptions.
Every town has one. An odd, disheveled weirdo, man or woman, young or old. Bob (not his real name), was the one in our town. For several years he would be seen hanging out on street corners, staring at traffic, muttering to himself. He was always dressed in a wrinkled army camouflage outfit, with black combat boots and unkempt, greasy black hair. Nobody knew where he came from, where he lived or how he supported himself. There was an edginess and an air about him that said, “stay away”. And everyone did.
I was setting up, getting ready to play a gig with my band at the local bookstore/café, when Bob walks in carrying a flute case. He comes up to me and haltingly asks if he could sit in and play a tune with us. I’m curious and say, “Sure. Why not.” Bob proceeds to open his case and slowly, gently takes out a beautiful, shiny silver flute. He cradles the instrument in his hands as if it is a newborn babe or precious jewel. We start to play our first set and Bob finds a seat at the back of the room. After a while, I invite him to come up and play a simple ballad with us, figuring he couldn’t screw it up too badly. We start the theme, and he steps up to the microphone and begins to play the most beautiful, heartfelt melodic flute music I had ever heard. We were all spellbound . . .band, audience, cooks, servers. To hear such beauty come from this person we had all dismissed as some “wacko” blew our minds. He stayed on and played the entire gig with us and finished to a standing ovation.
I spoke to him afterwards. Seems he was classically trained at Julliard in New York and other prestigious music schools and had played in concerts with symphony orchestras.
This was twenty years ago. A month after this incident, he disappeared and was never seen on the streets of our town again.
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