Be Frickin' Nice

It seems like a lot of people these days slept through the lesson in Kindergarten about kindness. Which is whack because my friends that at Kindergarten teachers pretty much base their entire year of lessons around kindness. Either way, some people suck at being kind. Good deeds? Is everyone supposed to be a saint these days?

No, you don't have to be a saint to perform good deeds, just a halfway decent human being. At the very least, do something nice for someone to get something out of it for yourself. I work the front door at the local ski lodge, and I always open the door for the Food and Beverage workers. It's not my job to open the door, but I do it anyways. Guess what? Free burritos and coffee every day. If that's your motivation to do a good deed, so be it, at least you're helping someone else, even if your goal is selfish.

To be fair, people that only do good deeds for the rewards are selfish assholes and generally not pleasant people to be around. Just like the people who say, "do good in the world, and the world will be good to you. It's called Karma." Fuck that why can't we just be nice to people because we should? Why does the universe have to decide if I'm a good person or not? Get that bullshit out of here.

If I could start a revolution right now, the goal of my fight would be to get everybody to do nice things, just to do it. I'm a strong believer in the shopping cart social dilemma. If you aren't familiar with it, basically there are two schools of thought. There are the people who put their shopping carts back in the corral, and those who leave it where they parked. The idea is that the person who returns their cart is inherently good, and the person who leaves it is inherently evil. This isn't to say cart returners are saints and cart abandoners are murderers and human traffickers, but rather shows if a person will choose helping people over helping themselves.

If you think about it, there is really no difficult feat involved in putting the shopping cart away, but for some reason people choose not to do it. The extra 30 seconds it takes to put away the cart can be the difference of dozens of people unable to park to get their own groceries, and for what? To sit at the same red light they would have caught anyways?

My revolution isn't dedicating your life to serving others. My revolution is doing small 30 second deeds that cause no real inconvenience to myself, but could make a world of difference to the people I'm helping. It's letting a car merge so they can get to the upcoming turn lane. Maybe they're on their way to the hospital to see their newborn child. It's leaving your loose change at the register at the gas station. Maybe the next person is going through a rough patch and needs a bit of change to put gas in their car. It's smiling and waving at the old lady at the bus stop. Maybe she just lost her husband of 50 years. The smallest deeds can change a persons entire day, or even their life.

A few months ago, I lost my job, and was desperate for work. I was in line at Starbucks, waiting for a coffee so I could get back to the job search. I was tired, I had lost hope, and was ready to give up. When I got to the counter, I was told that the person ahead of me had payed for me. I didn't know them, and being in the drive through I wasn't able to say thank you. Once I got home with my coffee, I found the motivation to keep searching for a job. I ended up applying to a random job that I had no experience in. Fast forward to today, I've been working that job for over month now, and love every moment of it. That one act of kindness, that one good deed, gave me the motivation I needed to find a job. What did it cost the person ahead of me?

$5.

Being a good person isn't a full time job. If you've seen the movie Deadpool you're familiar with Colossus' speech about being a hero. There are only 4 or 5 moments in everyone's life where you get the opportunity to be a hero. The same goes for being a good person. Good people aren't standing at a door opening it for everyone that comes through. Good people see the opportunity to hold the door for one person, and they take it. Is there a slight inconvenience to holding the door? Absolutely, it's about 30 seconds on the longer end. Is there a downside to leaving your change at the register? Yeah, you're down 20 cents. The difference is that your slight inconvenience can be a big convenience for someone else.

In my revolution, I want everyone to see the opportunity for small deeds, and take them. Strive to find 4 or 5 moments every day where you can do something nice for someone else. If you do the math, it'll cost you about a minute of your day and maybe a dollar. It's not hard for us to be nice people. So just do it.

In my revolution, everyone is a hero. Doing good deeds because that's what heroes do.

Coleman, out.