mom-onymous

The Golden Rule

I've always thought of myself as a considerate person, was raised to treat other as I'd like to be treated, which I took seriously growing up in an Irish Catholic household. But it wasn't until I got sober at 25 that I really learned what it meant to be considerate of another person. Sure, I knew how to be nice and how to be kind, be it opening the door for someone, holding an elevator, buying a donut for the homeless man sitting outside the donut shop. But truly being considerate is a different animal because it requires us to consider other as individuals as opposed to groups. Here's an example: If I was really being c0nsiderate of that homeless man, I might have asked him what he needed, if he needed anything, before I went in and purchased whatever I thought he might want. As a "homeless person" I figured he would be hungry and thirsty, and I may have been right, but as a person, given that he was outside a donut shop, I failed to consider that that might be the 10th donut he'd been offered that day. Maybe he could have used a couple bucks on his CTA card instead, who knows.