Kindly distracted
I’ve been trying to get to this column all morning but as I write it is my birthday, and I am swamped with Facebook notes and messages and texts of salutations. It is kind of distracting, but only in the best way possible.
I have a lot of distractions these days and am often apologizing to my poor editor for either completely missing or being terribly late in getting my column turned in.
It can be confusing, but even though I write a weekly column, I am not employed by the newspaper. I am a “contributing columnist,” so it is a true labor of love each week that is separate from the other work that I do. It is a hobby, if you will.
It is a terribly fulfilling hobby. I have truly enjoyed developing this habit of writing down my thoughts each week, though I still find it shocking that anyone would care to read the crazy that is rambling around in my head.
Some weeks are harder than others because my thoughts must be focused somewhere else, and that is OK. When I am able to focus on writing I find that it helps me look for the brighter sides of life because, otherwise, half the time I would just be whining about how overwhelming and sad life can be.
But I digress.
Today, I come to the keyboard with tremendous gratitude in my heart because so many people have distracted themselves with sending me notes of kindness and celebration of another trip around the sun, and it is reminding me that the best kind of distracted we could possibly be is distracted by kindness.
Whether it is in giving or receiving, kindness is never a bad thing.
I am always humbled by the people who seem to be incessantly thinking of others. I get so bogged down in mulling over my worries and strife that it always catches me off guard when someone expresses a kindness to me out of the blue. How wonderful that they have thought of me pleasantly when I’m sure they have as many things to worry about as I do.
Balu tells us in “The Jungle Book” that we should look for the “bare necessities” to forget about those worries and strife, and I think he’d agree that simple acts of kindness are an important part of that. (Am I the only one who always assumed he was singing about “bear necessities” as a play on the traditional phrase?)
But, sadly, one thing I am good at is focusing on the worries and strife and, when I have to apologize to someone because I have been “kinda distracted”, it is usually the struggles on which I have been focused.
I have a friend who is dealing with the worst combination of circumstances that I can imagine, and yet he always posts encouraging and positive things on Facebook, and is always one of the first to offer regards to his friends.
There’s no hiding under the bushel of problems for him; no, he lets that light shine wherever and whenever he sees an opportunity.
I’m not saying that we should ignore the sadness in our lives or in the world, there is more than enough of it out there and it is ok to feel those things. If we simply ignored them we’d be in a whole heap of mess. But, seeking and taking opportunities to focus ourselves on others in kindness is a wonderful way to remember why the sad things are sad in the first place.
We need each other. The best medicine for sadness is hearing from others that they care about you, celebrate you, and are here for you. The best medicine for soothing our own troubled souls is looking for the places where we can be that light for someone else.
I am not so diligent about acknowledging all of the friends’ birthdays that come up on social media throughout the year. My excuse is that I am so distracted by other things in my life that I don’t take the time.
But what a cop-out is that? It takes seconds to send someone a note of regard, and it only makes you feel good when you do. When I see all of the kind words from people that I rarely talk to, it makes me feel wonderful to know that I was on their radar for a second and that they stopped to say, “Have a great day!”
Of course, then I feel guilty because I am not sure I remembered to do the same for them, but that is my own cross to bear; or to repair. If I were to practice what I preach, I could fix that problem in a heartbeat. There is nothing like a good goal for improvement.
The world is a distracting place. Between terrifying news and incendiary and insidious gossip that we should truly care less about, we are led to think about so many ridiculous things on a daily basis as though they matter deeply to our existence.
What if we changed that course by distracting ourselves kindly instead? What if we woke up every day thinking about who we’d love to connect with rather than thinking about what scandalous thing happened in the ball game or on the red carpet last night?
I am so thankful for the kind distraction I will enjoy this week, and I am reminded that I should distract myself with being kind to others more often. But right now, I am glad that I stayed focused long enough to finish this. Thank you for focusing long enough to read it.