Can we all be a little nicer?
Living Happy
In his 1963 work, Martin Luther King wrote, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
That quote goes in and out of favor.
But when I see that quote, especially on a day like today where everything big and small seems to go wrong, that quotes makes me remember that I need to rededicate myself to humanhood—to the hope that I can find a way to see everyone as part of a great, big human system that we are all in together. Yes, that includes the terrible people. Yes, that includes people who create hate, who sow violence. Yes, that includes people who are mean. And that’s not to say that it’s not okay to get angry and use that as a driving force for positive change.
Melissa Brodrick, MEd, for Harvard Health wrote, “A recent study reported on how people felt after performing or observing kind acts every day for seven days. Participants were randomly assigned to carry out at least one more kind act than usual for someone close to them, an acquaintance or stranger, or themselves, or to try to actively observe kind acts. Happiness was measured before and after the seven days of kindness. The researchers found that being kind to ourselves or to anyone else — yes, even a stranger — or actively observing kindness around us boosted happiness.”
Trying to be kind (and succeeding) helps us feel better.
And back in 2022, Gina Cherelus wrote for the New York Times about all the ways that constant anger ruins our health.
“Anger responses can cause a ripple effect throughout the body: From the cardiovascular system to your nervous system, it’s all fair game. These are just some of the main organ systems it can play havoc with,” she wrote.
“According to Dr. Wittstein, an expert in stress cardiomyopathy, also known as “broken heart syndrome,” one way to think about the heart is to imagine a house: There can be issues with the pipes, doors or the electrical system, but the house itself might seem fine.
“‘Rage can have effects on the arteries that supply blood on the heart, it can have an effect on the electrical system specifically that tells the heart when to beat, and it can have an effect specifically on the heart muscle itself,’” he said.
“So if you’re already living with conditions that affect the cardiovascular system such as high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythms or high cholesterol, moments of extreme anger may leave you more vulnerable to a sudden heart attack.
“When you’re filled with rage, Dr. Wittstein offered as an example, blood pressure can increase, blood vessels can constrict, inflammatory cells are released by the immune system. All of this can lead to the rupturing of plaque inside the coronary artery.”
Here’s the thing: in our passion to right the world’s wrongs, or even a small town’s wrongs, we don’t want to become hateful, so overwhelmed by rage that we lose our humanity, that we hurt our health, or we cause bigger hate, bigger oppressions, bigger hurts.
I am tired of enemies. I am tired of thinking in a polarities and sound bites that makes people enemies. I want a world that doesn’t have that, yet I still think that way. Recently, someone who has some issues and has been kind of mean to me, asked me, “How can you still be nice to me? I don’t understand how you can still be nice.”
It’s the only way I want to be. And, I TOTALLY fail at it sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I am going to stop trying. I want a world of nice. I can’t control anyone else, but I can at least partially control myself, so I’m going to try.
I’ll call it the Nice Experiment. It’s starting now.
These are my hand-me down stuffed animals in my bedroom with the ancient wallpaper. It was nice of people to give them to me. :) Thank you people! That was so nice. Note: The dog I am holding is real. The only two that weren’t hand-me-downs were Grover and Teddy (over on the left side). I insisted on sleeping with every single one of them because I was so worried that if I didn’t, they’d feel left out.
LINK
Over here on Happier Human is an article about how to be nicer.
YES we can.