Someone you know recently passed away. As far as your list of favorite persons go, that person didn’t make the cut. And so you’re standing there, watching as people profess how much they will miss this person, how much their lives were forever changed by this individual.
Something deep inside you starts to boil. A rage that’s been building up in you for years now. Others like you feel it too, although to be honest, some of them have simply allowed themselves to be swallowed up by prejudice. You feel this need to lash out at every grieving person. You’re feeling this strong desire to ‘put them in their place’, or ‘set things right’; to let them know that the person they’re being all sad about isn’t this heroic character they’re all trying to describe.
But is it really the right time to do all that? How petty can you be, if you’re going to be gravely offended by people mourning the death of someone they admired, or cherished, or loved, whose accomplishments and good deeds they want to remember with fond appreciation? And for the sake of argument, even if you were right and you had some really hard evidence to back your criticisms, is this really something that absolutely can’t wait another time?
I know for certain that if the tables were turned and the same thing happened to you, you wouldn’t like it one bit. So how about today—and maybe we all start doing this with every day that follows—we give each other a healthy amount of mutual respect. We may not always be on the same side of every argument, but we can always choose to be kind to one another.
-The Wasted Wanderer
The Wasted Wanderer 