Today in class, I realized something. Many teenagers or adults don’t show kindness towards others that aren’t their close friends or relatives.

For example— someone was laughing right behind me as I did my presentation of my “All-About-Me” poster, but didn’t laugh and gave genuine respect for their friends when they presented.

Now, while this is unfortunately normal, it shouldn’t be, and while it’s a very simple thing to change, most people aren’t  A) used to change and B) won’t understand why it affects them so much until it does. So that is why I’m making this a topic question, “How and why do we genuinely need more kindness in our lives?”

Just getting the statistics from me wouldn’t be enough to support my claim, so I decided to ask some people if they’ve ever been judged, yelled or laughed at by someone while going through something, and then, when someone else went through the exact same thing, didn’t receive the same amount of disrespect. 

When talking to my sister, she talked about how unfair it was that her English teacher gave someone else more time for an assignment but didn’t give her the same even though both students were out of school. While this is mainly the teacher’s fault, many people can show this sense of favoritism towards certain coworkers and even students.

It’s even more common that people don’t show kindness toward people they do know. When asking for examples from my friends, one talked about how as a kid he helped a woman out at his church from time to time. One day, her child tripped over his legs and fell on the ground. Now,of course, younger children cry more often than teenagers or adults, so of course as a parent would, the woman got mad at my friend for not being careful around the child, but when it happened to someone else a few months later, the woman was calmer to the person and basically brushed it off.

When talking to another friend, she expressed how frustrating it is when she does something she’ll get yelled at by her parents, but when her younger sibling does the same thing or even worse, they don’t receive any punishment. This can put pressure on people to not even get close to others as situations such as these can arise and the person will get yelled at for something they couldn’t control, even when they are close to this person.

Another personal experience for me is at work. I’m a complete newbie. So of course I’m expected to not get things right nor as quickly as other people usually do. But the problem is that I’ve been getting “picked” on for it; I had taken an order, and yes, it was actually right but a coworker of mine brought out the wrong drink and had to remake it, but before that she looked at me weird, like I had did this on purpose. Now while she doesn’t talk to me, it still doesn’t make sense to treat someone like that but turn around and be kind to others and be okay when they mess up.

This type of behavior is common, but shows how truly unfair it is to not show kindness towards someone and how it’s going to affect someone in the long run, me for example, this situation and many others that have happened in my shifts makes me not want to go to work and even talk to my coworkers.

I’m getting ahead of myself with the depressive talk, so how do we even solve this problem that most or all of us have? Not judging (or getting upset at) others and genuinely giving someone the benefit of doubt, actually taking the time to sit and think of why someone would do this certain thing, and if it has nothing to do with you, to not make a comment in your head or out loud.

Showing basic kindness towards others shouldn’t be a tough topic to overcome. It’s something in our generation has become natural; we might not even know that we’re doing it because it’s not what we’re used to seeing, but being able to actually recognize this and not only stop ourselves and others from doing this, can help tremendously with the cause.