Free Massages

I was sitting on the sofa and my back was SO tense. I was squeezing my shoulders and upper back with both hands. I could feel the pain and tense pressure moving within my muscles. The aches seemed to gravitate through my whole body. At the same time, I was throwing myself a pity party for being in such pain with no one around to massage it away. I was listening to some podcast on human connection. That particular podcast made me think of a quote from Martin Luther King that I had recently read, “Life’s most urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'” So I thought, surely I wasn’t the only woman with back pain. Surely other moms are writhing in pain and the closest she can get to a message is when her toddler jumps on her neck as if she’s a human trampoline.

Suddenly it hit me like a bolt of lightning and a voice from heaven said, “Massage women’s backs for free!” Just kidding. It wasn’t a voice from heaven it was just an idea. But I ran with it. I posted my offer on my Facebook to give free massages “to women only.” After all, I’d been told I was really good at them by literally everyone I’d ever given a massage to. My mom even told me when I was a kid that I should have a massage stand instead of a lemonade stand for extra money. The massage stand is just weird, but I didn’t think offering free massages would be.

Except it was.

Almost NO-ONE took me up on my offer—except for my grandmother. Of course, she would but I was totally cool with it. After all, I’m a CNA, I’m not afraid to touch people.

So why was everyone being so weird? Why’d basically no one take me up on my offer? I had to find out.

I decided to look up kindness. The definition is the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.

Synonyms: Kindliness, kind-heartedness, warm-heartedness, tender-heartedness, goodwill, affectionateness, affection, warmth, gentleness, tenderness, concern, care.

Different writers, presumably baby boomers, wrote down their perspective in various articles on “what happened to kindness” which they claim to be gone or lacking. But they weren’t all wrong in that something seems to have happened to kindness. The general idea I got after reading a few articles is that almost everybody wants the world to flourish with an abundance of more kindness. Almost everyone thinks people aren’t kind anymore.

I wonder how often we think that we may be one of those “people who aren’t kind anymore.” How willing are we to act in the kindness we seek in others?

Kindness is not gone it’s just different, kinda. For instance, we live in a techno world, the internet is #life. Pretty much every good deed, any kindness one bestows on another almost always goes right up on the internet—unless they’re getting paid for it, like unless it’s their job. While posting positive messages of bestowing kindness to others is a great as a reminder to those getting lost in the sharing of self-deprecating memes and funny cat videos, it can also just come off as selfish, vain, and insincere. Maybe the kindness you bestowed onto someone made them feel vulnerable and they’d rather not have that information broadcast.

Perhaps the women with backs sore as mine looked longing at my offer in their news feed, but thought against it for fear that a blown up image of their aching back and bulging discs would be on display on social media platforms everywhere. And I totally get that. In hindsight, I probably should have messaged them privately to be rejected and ignored in secret instead of publicly. At least this way the gesture would have seemed a bit more genuine and not just some Facebook claim to fame as we are becoming so familiar with. I was just trying to be the kindness I need, the kindness I seek.

I guess I’ll have to find another way.

I hope we all find some way to give the kindness we are looking for.