Spread kindness

There is no doubt: a pandemic is scary. And serious. Deadly. And dehumanizing. It is one thing to watch a pandemic on the news. It is another to experience it in your own community.

In recent weeks, much of the world has encountered the novel coronavirus named COVID-19, up close and all too personal. People are dying. Families and communities are suffering. We are not used to this. Sure, if you live long enough, you learn that life is not to be taken for granted, that somebody you know or love who is with us one day is sometimes not with us the next. Loss happens, yes. But not at the frequency that is happening now.

This virus moves swiftly. It takes people quickly. And we catch it from each other.

I was hiking in the forest the other day and a jogger passed me from the opposite direction. We both moved off the path, to different sides. Social distancing was rapidly and successfully navigated in the middle of state trust land. Still, I felt as if I should cover my face when he approached me. I mean I was walking and the other guy was running. Plus he was breathing harder than I was. Was six feet enough distance to safely avoid something aerosolized if he spontaneously coughed when we passed?

He didn’t cough. And I didn’t cover my mouth. Instead, I forced myself to remember who I was and who I aspired to be. So I stopped, smiled, and lifted my hand, not toward my mouth and nose but instead in shape of hello. I said hi to the guy, with my open hand. I waved. He nodded.

Within seconds, the moment was gone. We continued on our separate ways. I can’t say how that runner felt but I personally felt better because we had acknowledged each other. We had remained human. There had been a moment, however slight, of recognition. Of acknowledgement. We had not succumbed to fear. Instead, we had offered a gesture of good will.

Of kindness.

What is the average number of people that one person with COVID-19 can infect? I bet you know the answer. Perhaps you also know the average incubation period from virus exposure to symptoms for people colonized or infected with COVID-19 who become sick. You may even know the estimated percentage of people who do not actually become sick despite being “infected”.

But did you know that there is something out there among us right now, something far more contagious than coronavirus, something with an almost instantaneous incubation period, something that can infect and spread among people and populations almost like a wave of thunder or a bolt of lightning?

There is. It’s called kindness.

Think about it. You can look at a person and smile, even with your eyes, and despite the fact that both you and other person are wearing masks, you can see the spontaneous smile reciprocated in that other person’s eyes. The transmission time is almost unmeasurable. And that person – and you as well – can then transmit the same smile and feeling of connection to the next person, and the next, until, before a virus can replicate even once, a ripple of humanity can spread across an entire corner of a community.

Guess what else kindness can do? It can bridge space, and “social distancing”, and email, and even time. Some friends occasionally leave fresh bread on my doorstep. They don’t ring the bell. They don’t stop to say hi. They don’t even wave.

They just leave the bread and text my wife or me that it is there. We see the text. We open the door. There is “no one” there. There is only bread. But there is so so much more. There is thoughtfulness. There is generosity. There is humanity.

There is kindness.

Based on his experience in a concentration camp during World War II, Victor Frankl wrote about the “last of the human freedoms”: to choose one’s attitude.

What attitude do you choose? What attitude might we all remind ourselves to choose during one of the most frightening times in modern history?

Let’s try to choose kindness. And let’s try to spread it as fast and as far as possible.