What happened to kindness?

As I sift through news posts on social media, I read the comments just to get a feel for what the rest of the world is thinking or going through.  It helps me to feel connected, and not alone in what I am thinking and feeling.  The problem is that there are so many people who are so quick to attack another person because they dislike what they are saying or don't agree with them. 

I read a comment on a local news story about restaurants opening back up to 50% capacity this past Monday.  One women posted a comment about how happy she was to be able to dine out with her husband for their anniversary.  The follow-up comments from others were telling her that she was going to die, and wishing for her to become sick with the virus.  Really?  Even if you didn't agree with what she was doing or saying, couldn't you just say nothing?  It seems that this type of behavior is only getting worse.  I continue to see hateful and mean comments on every story that I come across.  People attacking people for no apparent reason.  

Are we forgetting that there are real people on the other end?

As a child, I was taught that if I could not say anything nice, then I should not say anything at all.  Were others not taught this principle? 

The mental health of this world is in a fragile state right now.  I'm not suggesting that we stop giving our opinions and having conversations.  I am suggesting that we be more respectful of others, and not spew hateful remarks.  There is a way to get your opinion across without telling someone they are an idiot or that you hope they die.  You never know what the person on the other end is going through.  You don't know their story, or the reasons why they have the opinions that they do. What if they have lost their job, have sick family members, their home is being foreclosed, they have an incurable disease or depression.  What if your remark is the final thing that causes them to feel like they just can't take anymore from this world?  What if instead, you wrote something kind and reassuring for this person to read?  Do you know how quickly kind comments can change someone's state of mind?

Please be kind with your words and your actions.  We are all human.

More change

I've been busy over the last couple of weeks!  I finished up a semester of classes, continued to work from home, perfected my face mask sewing and even found time to read a book that has been on my list.

Just when we are getting settled into what we think our lives look like now, we are faced with even more change.  Now it is time to slowly go back out into the world and discover yet another new normal.

I have finally adapted to working from home and find that I like being here.  Before the pandemic even, I was thinking that our world had everything all wrong.  We spend more time with people at work than we do with the people we love the most.  We spend more of our lives trying to earn a living than we do actually doing the things we love and doing work that matters in our communities. I had hoped that this pandemic would create change in that direction.

Don't get me wrong, I completely dislike the social distancing protocols and the fact that I can't go in to work if I need or want to.  But when it comes down to it, I will miss working from home and spending the days with my family as my co-workers.  I will miss not having obligations after work and on weekends because those have become times set aside for family and enjoying life.

I wanted the world to slow down, and it did, but it seems like everyone is ready to pick up right where they left off - right back into the exhausting fast pace that is our society.  We only get one life to live, and I think we should focus more on God and family and what good we can do.  Yes, we have to earn a living but that job shouldn't be the main point of our existence.  Just my opinions, of course.