The Idiot’s Guide to Loving Humanity

Read Time: 8 minutes

I’m not saying humans are all assholes.  Well, I’m not exactly saying that.  

 

After all, two of our favorite ideas as people are being kind, and loving everyone.  We plaster these ideas all over our social media, we put bumper stickers on our cars, and we really like to pretend these represent our core values.

 

We love the idea of turning the other cheek, seeking the best in people, responding to hate with love, and everyone ☪☮⚥✡☥☯✝ing as we dance in well lit meadows and hold hands with strangers.

 

And we….kind of act these things out…sometimes…ish.  We’ll say the polite thing if put in the socially required situation, we generally will help out a friend with a favor if they’ve helped us out recently, and we’ll begrudgingly kick in an extra $30 for a birthday dinner even though all we had was a God damn side salad.

 

The problem is that then life happens.  Then someone asks us for a difficult favor and it’s really not a good time, or we have to interact with someone who tells stories about their cats and we have to fake getting a call from our dead grandmother to get out of there, or we have to “coexist” with the person looking at their phone while the fucking light is green, and we pray they get him by a semi.

 

Most of us don’t say beyond the bare minimum to make sure someone is doing well.  Most of us don’t volunteer, or give to charity—certainly not one that we’re not directly impacted by.  After all, we care about everyone, but only enough to actually do things for like eight people. Most of us have a couple of excuses at the ready when—God forbid—someone asks us to help them move.

 

So there’s the problem.  We’re big fans of universal kindness, but we suck at executing it.

 

This sucks because loving and being kind to everyone are in fact two of the most important ideas to ever exist in humanity.  They don’t just sound nice as a corny picture quote on Instagram. They’re actually effective in creating a better world.

 

Why Universal Kindness Matters

 

 

Sometimes you’ll try to drive out hate and bigotry with love and understanding, and your grandma will still be like, “Okay, but I still don’t trust the blacks.”  So you’ll have to sigh, and either avoid her at Thanksgiving, or act like you do want to hang out with her so that you can come over and throw her absentee ballot in the garbage disposal.  

 

There are scenarios where universal love and kindness don’t work.  

 

But generally, love and kindness are the right choices to make.  You almost never regret kindness. Kindness warms icy hearts, it gets shit done, and it disarms 99% of enemies out there.  It helps bad people turn corners they wouldn’t otherwise turn. When someone is a dick to you, and you tell them how great those jeans make their ass look, they’re physically incapable of continuing to be mean to you.

 

Loving everyone is really important too.  It’s easy to love funny people, nice people, or people with cool sex organs.  But loving everyone means everyone, and people who suck and have no friends (for a good reason) often need love more than anybody else.  A widespread policy of loving everyone won’t fix everyone–some of them will still be mean to waiters, and still reply with their dumbass commentary on peoples’ Tweets–but it can fix a lot of them.

 

But the problem with vague platitudes is that you put a bumper sticker on your car, or post some corny ass tumblr quote on Instagram, and it makes you feel like that quote reflects who you are.  You’ve found a shortcut to the feeling that comes from doing the right thing without actually having to do it.

 

So if you want kindness to be your modus operandi, there are some things you should consider.

 

What Universal Kindness Actually Entails

 

So here’s what people don’t realize: real kindness is fucking inconvenient.

 

 

Real kindness is noticing that someone is struggling to carry something to their apartment and helping them, even though, like, God damn it, your apartment is on the other end of the whole complex.  It’s saying something from the heart to your friend even though your relationship is mostly based in sending memes to each other, and real feelings feel all like, “ew.” It’s calling your mom just to hear her ramble for twenty minutes about the Thompson’s divorce because you know she wants to talk at somebody about it.

 

It sucks.  It’s annoying.       

 

Volunteering at a soup kitchen is gross.  You feel bad for homeless people, but they’re also often unbathed with unclean clothes, and they often have untreated mental issues.  Being around them can be pretty unpleasant.

 

Taking care of someone else’s dog is a great way to get dog hair and shit all over your apartment.

 

Cooking someone dinner means you have to cook someone fucking dinner.

 

Universal kindness and love is even harder because then you have to be that kind to everyone.

 

That means people with bad breath.  It means people who don’t use their turn signal.  It means weirdos who pull us into their social awkwardness and make everyone uncomfortable all the time.  It means co-workers, rivals, people who are total and complete assholes to you. It means bigots, and douches, and people with weird faces.

 

It means always looking for and believing in the best in people–even the ones where that seems entirely unworthy of your effort.  It means not giving up on the idea that a sucky person can not suck, and doing everything you can to pull the not-suck out of them.

 

 

Kindness is sacrifice.  It’s putting what you actually want to do aside for someone else–sometimes even the guy in the lifted truck who laughs as he says things like, “Age is just a number, bro!”

 

It also involves lying a whole lot, by the way.  Giving a pity laugh to a joke attempt from someone who is struggling socially is totally dishonest, and totally kind and loving.  Pretending you aren’t grossed out by your friend’s attempt at making dinner is good of you.  Saying “You got this,” to someone who you’re thinking very well may not have this before a big event can be a lifesaver.

 

These things make a difference, and when you combine a lot of instances of them, they mean fewer sad people, more people are helped to get things done, and the world isn’t so stupid and awful all the time.  

 

This stuff really matters.

 

But sometimes it’s not totally clear how to be kind, so I’ve made a list to help you out.

 

50 Kind Things to Do All the Time

 

1) When you see some tourists looking to take a picture, don’t wait for them to ask you for help.  Offer help.

 

2) When your friend is moving, instead of crossing your fingers and praying they don’t ask you to help, offer to help and refuse any payment unless it seems paying you would make them feel better.

 

3) When in a group situation that hasn’t turned out as expected, don’t be the wet blanket.  Even if inside, you feel disappointed and irritable, plaster on a smile, so you don’t suck the life out of the room.

 

4) Offer to pay always.

 

5) User your membership to take someone else to Costco so that they too can get 87 rolls of paper towels at a 12% discount.

 

6) Please and thank you.  I mean duh.

 

7) Force yourself to intently listen.  

 

8) If you really want to go to Chipotle, but you can tell your friend would prefer Cheesecake Factory, don’t just go to Cheesecake Factory, but act like you really wanted to go so they don’t feel any guilt.  There’s like 114 things on the menu. You’ll find something.

 

9) Think about what matters to people, not what you think should matter to them.

 

10) Tell people when they’re right, or when they called something before it happened.  People are egomaniacal babies that love this kind of affirmation.

 

11) Nope.  Shut up.  You don’t need to say that, and you know exactly what I mean.  The world doesn’t always benefit from your truth.

 

12) If you have to say something that may be hurtful to someone, do as many verbal backflips as possible to make sure it comes out as kindly as possible.

 

13) Respect boundaries–even if they’re weird as hell boundaries, like “I don’t like people looking at me while I’m driving.” Just be like, “Alright,” and look out the window.

 

14) Take the blame even if you don’t think you’re in the wrong over harmless things, where the worst result is someone being annoyed by you (but not anything actually substantial).

 

15) Let the pedestrian go.  You can wait.

 

16) Let the car go.  You can wait.

 

17) Give your coat to someone who’s cold, then totally pretend like it’s not making you cold to not have a coat, so that they don’t feel guilty.

 

18) Take note of what you normally do that may be making life worse for those around you, and you know, cut it out.

 

19) Express your frustration with calm words, not eye rolls, and groans.

 

20) Do some shit like climb a mountain or something else that sounds awful because your friend wants a hiking buddy.

 

21) Stop the thing you’re working on that’s important to you because your friend needs someone to take their dog out.

 

22) Let your grandma think you’re a nice, Christian boy who totally doesn’t jerk off to feet.

 

23) Like your friend’s gram without expecting a Like in return (the true golden rule of friendship).

 

24) When someone is being physically or mentally abused in public, consider not just standing by, sipping your soda, and going, “This is uncomfortable,” and instead stepping in.

 

25) Overtip.

 

26) Don’t just tell your parents you love them.  Tell them specifically why (the more in the moment, the better). 

 

27) Take the middle seat, even if your legs are longer.

 

28) For the love of God, try to care about whether or not she finishes.

 

29) Periodically ask yourself how everyone else in the room is doing.

 

30) Volunteer.

 

31) Help the annoying lady take stuff in from her grocery trip, even though she’s going to make the most inane small talk about the dairy aisle you can possibly imagine.

 

32) Always share everything.

 

33) Be uncomfortable so that other people can be comfortable.

 

34) Donate to one of those medical GoFundMes that should never exist in a civilized society.

 

35) Go out of your way to see the people who matter to you.

 

36) Participate in difficult things like workout classes and diets with your friends so that they have moral support.

 

37) Make sure your guests have enough towels.

 

38) Get the laundry started so that she doesn’t have to.

 

39) Get a random nice gift for somebody.  

 

40) Support policies that treat other people better.

 

41) Get the Uber and don’t ask for VenMo.

 

42) Clarify what someone was trying to say when it’s clear their ramblings aren’t landing with the group.

 

43) Don’t subject everybody else to your music.  Please the crowd, douchebag.

 

44) Don’t call people douchebags.

 

45) Go to the parties you’re invited to.

 

46) Cover your friend’s shift.

 

47) If someone is wrong about something irrelevant…just let it go.

 

48) Don’t make people feel dumb for their beliefs, even if their beliefs are mind-numbingly dumb.

 

49) Take the heat when someone farts and they’re clearly super embarrassed by it.

 

50) Offer to drive.

 

These are all very doable, and yet, you still don’t have to do all of them to be a kind person.  You can just consistently do, like, nine of them, still blame your friend when they fart, and still be an over all nice person.

 

Love and kindness take a lot of work, but so do most things that make an actual positive difference in the world.  

 

We have to give to each other, and think about each other more than we already do, and anticipate how we can make the world better.  We have to put up with just how fucking annoying and inconvenient kind actions are, and then do them anyway.

 

After all, it’s for the good of humanity, so try to suck it up.  Get in the habit of thinking about what others will want and need.  Consider what is important to them. Prioritize adding joy to the world.  Look for the right thing.

 

 

And when all else fails, definitely, definitely don’t be an asshole.