Anger’s all the rage... so let’s try a little tenderness for a change
HAVE you noticed how cross people are these days? I don’t mean punch-you-inthe-chops cross – that’s just what happens in town centres on Saturday nights thanks to low-grade booze and high-grade testosterone.
No, it’s more a widespread, festering fury among the general populace.
It’s mostly kept on the down-low, like a pan of stew on a low heat, but at certain points you will notice it boiling over, manifesting itself suddenly in supermarket queues, car parks and cafes where there aren’t quite enough chairs.
There’s no violence involved. Nobody has their teeth knocked out or a machete waved in their direction but there is a lot of tutting, eye-rolling, huffing and muttering. Occasional clipped words, regular in-your-face rudeness. Sometimes even some shouting. Frankly, that’s no less unpleasant. I don’t know quite what’s gone wrong because this isn’t who we are. We’re a nation of bus-stop conversationalists, pass-the-time-of-day smilers who hold doors open and make brews for the bloke cleaning the windows. Or at least we were.
Somehow here in 2019 we’re all a lot less kind than we used to be.
This week alone I got an earful about press standards from a middle-aged bloke in a trilby when I mentioned I worked for the local newspaper, an unsavoury hand gesture from a woman in a Citroen Berlingo and outright trolley wars when I parked mine infront of the pâté selection in Tesco. I have the bruise to prove it.
Perhaps it’s the uncertain times in which we live. Let’s face it, stockpiling tins of beans while watching the raging bin fire that is the Westminster political landscape is enough to make anyone grumpy.
Life in general is pressured, too. Time is short. Demands are long. Sometimes it’s hard to be cheery when there’s nothing in the fridge, the kids are playing up and you’ve just finished a 12-hour shift.
But here’s the thing. It only takes a tiny effort to make it significantly better. And I have a plan.
Random Acts of Kindness Day is now a thing and it’s happening soon.
Usually, I roll my eyes at these made up ‘days’ – whoever invented National Multiple Personality Day needs to have a word with any one of themselves – but this day might just be what we need.
Think about it. One act of random kindness each in one 24-hour period.
Compliment the first three people you talk to – even if one is your boss or the bad tempered bus driver. Let someone into the traffic queue despite it being rush-hour and every fibre of your being is screaming: ‘No! This is MY space!’.
Bake treats. Pay for someone else’s parking. Take the neighbour’s bins out.
You get the drift.
I’m not advocating a return to the Britain of 1954. Who needs rationing, smog and the Cold War?
But wouldn’t it be nice if, for just one day, all the the fury died down?