In my life, I’ve noticed that being kind to others causes less stress for myself. Kindness has the ability to resolve issues before they escalate. Being kind feels good, too. Kindness creates an invitation for discussion, growth, and resolution.

The “Grumpy Old Man”

On my bus ride to the university today, there were a lot of uncomfortable components. The bus was about 45 minutes late, it was very crowded, and the traffic was horrible. On a good day, like today,  I’m not affected by these things. I had a nice run this morning, I’m well rested, and I love my life. Furthermore, I have too many important things on my mind to be bothered by the inconveniences of public transportation. However, for other individuals, one “grumpy old man” to be exact, the whole situation was simply too overwhelming.

I’ll take a couple steps back, I’m in Italy, but I don’t speak Italian….yet. So, on the bus I was chatting with my colleague, in English, about a variety of things. We were in the middle of a conversation about how his mother is trying to find yet another reason to celebrate his existence (this is typical for Italian families especially in the south of Italy) when the man in front of me says, “Basta! Basta, basta, basta, basta……(more words in Italian).” Basta means stop or enough, I knew this.

I was so confused. What did we say? What did we do? Why was he so upset? My Italian friend was also confused so he inquired to the man about what caused him to be so rude to us. He asked him if we aren’t allowed to speak on the bus. The old man said, “no, but you’re annoying me, you shouldn’t talk for so long, etc.” A few minutes later my friend told the “grumpy old man” that he could have been nicer about the situation. He could have kindly asked us to be quiet and we would have happily done so. The “grumpy old man” said that he was already so annoyed that he couldn’t be nice and insisted that we should learn from the situation. My friend responded that maybe the “grumpy old man” should have said something before he was so annoyed and maybe he needed to learn from the situation. BOOM. Mic drop.

In my opinion, the decibel range of our voices was reasonable for a bus. We were chatting, not yelling. In some cultures, its is considered rude to speak at all on public transportation, but not in Italy. Especially not Napoli. This considered, my friend and I didn’t even have the thought that we were being rude. We certainly were not purposely trying to annoy anyone. We were simply making light out of a long bus ride.

The Principle

If I were the “grumpy old man” I’d like to think that I would have thought about our intention before speaking out. If I was annoyed maybe I would say something along the lines of “could you please be a bit more quietly?” I would have been kind. Treating people with kindness not only makes it easier for you to get what you want, in my opinion, but it also shows that you have some compassion for others. It shows that you don’t feel superior to those younger than you, poorer than you, less educated than you.

Of course, I don’t know what is going on in the “grumpy old man’s” life. It could just be an off day for him, especially given how inconvenient his travel to work was. He didn’t ruin my day either, just provoked some thought. Maybe he could have turned his day around by practicing kindness. Especially at his age, hasn’t he learned that being kind is a much more admirable trait than being rude? That being kind feels better than being rude? Yes, sometimes it can be hard to be kind, and I’m certainly no angel. One thing I do know is, that its not my place to belittle another person. If someone isn’t directly attacking me, I have no reason to be anything but kind.