Kill 'em With Kindness

OK, it is the 5th of July, and I'm the only one awake.  We went to the lake yesterday and visited with family and friends all day.  It was a ton of fun for everyone.  I felt like a teacher instead of a mom at one point though.  Someone told my daughter (who is 9) that there were going to be a lot of times when she felt like she was the smartest person in the room, and that she should  be patient and try to teach all those dummies out there. (The dummies out there was paraphrased, but the meaning was clear).  For some reason, as both a parent and a teacher, I felt the need to correct this person.  You see, I don't believe I am the smartest person in the room ( I might be right now, as I'm alone with the dog) I believe that there are millions and millions of people who are just as smart as me.  They are probably smart in different ways, but they are every bit as smart as I am.  I had to explain to my very sweet and sensitive daughter that this person is rather awesome and incredibly intelligent, but clearly isn't very smart in communication skills...OK, I didn't say that,  but I wanted to.  The point is, as we sit here on a holiday celebrating the greatest melting pot ever, (that would be USA) I am going to preach kindness.  There are so many opinions in this country, about so many different things.  There are laws being written mandating tolerance allowing to do anything they want.  I supposed if that is the only way we can get others to be nice, that is what we have to do. However, I feel like if we use our free speech we can not only  be kind to people who are different from us, we should go out of our way to LEARN from them.  I live in an area that is fairly sparsely populated.  Therefore, if you want friends, you may not be able to walk to the culd-a-sac next door and find someone with the same socioeconomic status as you.  In fact, it is pretty likely that you will have friends who have not graduated from high school, and you will have friends who have a masters degree.  We all share a common history, our "neighborhood", which has been settled by our ancestors for 200 years, and we share a common future, our children.  I think it is time to expand this neighborhood and share a common future with our entire country.  I think we should be nice to, not only the people next to us, but to the people we don't even know.  When we go to the city, be nice to the strangers in the museum and the shopping mall.  Be nice to the guy parking your car, and be nice to the people you see in restaurants. This is not a difficult thing, if you see that, there is something to learn from each of these people.  Perhaps if we do this, we will see that we don't need to legislate everything, especially kindness.