Sometimes being kind can be really hard – or at the very least extremely awkward. Take for instance, the case when someone has food in their teeth, or worse, when a man’s fly is undone. I remember once being asked (when I was in school) to tell a man older than I that the latter was the case with him. I think my face was flushed red with embarrassment. It would have been easier to just do nothing.
Very recently, I found myself in the embarrassing situation of being informed (in public) by another man – whom I did not know – that in fact my own fly was undone. The man was Dutch and I did not understand him at first, but I got the point when he started gesturing.
I am grateful to this man. I do not know if it was a hard or awkward thing for him to do. Dutch people are remarkably direct and unashamed – perhaps this was just another sign of this. I do know this: to be kind we must sometimes overcome our own inertia, our irrational fears, face some personal discomfort. How much kindness is never done just because it is easier not to?
Meditations of Lambchop 