Good Intentions

Last week, as I was contemplating what to do for the random act of kindness that Mantra asked me to perform, I noticed something interesting: I found myself being kinder to everyone. The act of thinking consciously about how I could do some small kindness for a stranger seemed to make opportunities for kindness pop out of the walls and burst from the sky and come barreling over my head, leaving little footprints of kindness all over me. I was breathing out kindness and oozing it out my pores and just radiating it everywhere. And all that kindness made me feel happier myself.

On the particular night that I left the present of a grocery gift card on a stranger's truck, I waited in line for thirty minutes. The store was crowded with holiday shoppers and there were too few cashiers. And the particular line I picked was a disaster. The couple at the front of the line was arguing with the cashier over the sale price of a case of beverages they had purchased. The cashier and the store manager spent at least twenty minutes trying to explain to the couple that they had indeed been charged the correct price, and had misunderstood the sale. The couple wouldn't give in, the manager and cashier (for some reason) decided not to close the transaction and talk to the couple at the customer service desk, but to conduct the negotiation there at the checkstand, while the line ballooned.

To move to another line was risky. There were only two other cashiers and each of their lines stretched half the length of the store. The couple in front of me was livid. They had two children, who were being extraordinarily patient, but still occasionally pulling candy off the rack or asking if it was time to go yet. They had meat that was thawing and ice cream that was melting. Periodically, they'd interrupt the store manager or the couple in front of them to berate them. And they had a point in both cases, the whole situation seemed to be unnecessarily delaying an already out-of-control grocery trip.

But I was in kind mode. I tried to think of something to do to entertain the two kids, but amazingly, my magical mama purse was somehow devoid of entertainments. I decided to be kind to the parents by sympathizing with them. I decided to be kind to the store manager by not yelling at him for not moving to the next transaction. I decided to be kind to the couple at the front of the line by not yelling at them for not understanding math. I decided to be kind to the other people in the store by remaining in this uselessly stuck line, making it appear longer, so they'd get in some other line that was actually moving. After all, I didn't have any kids with me, I didn't have anyplace to go, I had the luxury of treating a grocery store line like a mini-vacation, while others didn't. And with kindness radiating out of me, I calmly looked at magazines and smiled at the kids. It probably would have been kind of me to purchase a magazine, instead of reading them for free, but they were all so horrifically bad I thought that would go beyond kindness into martyrdom.

Today, Question posted to say she was trying to decide on a word to focus on in the new year. I thought about the calmness I felt during the weeks of waving pedestrians on in front of me, letting other cars cut in front of me, holding doors open and just generally slowing down and thinking about what small kindnesses I could do for others. And I thought about the shame and disappointment I felt about resolutions I had made at the dawn of a new year in year's past. And I decided that I like the idea of an intention much more than a resolution. So, I'm going to pick a word too. I haven't quite decided what it is yet, but I'll let you know when I do. What about you?