How Do You Like to Be Treated?
Do you treat people in the same manner you desire to be treated?
This is an important question, because recently it feels like people are not answering it by their actions.
Do you want to be potentially murdered simply due to the color of your skin? Do you want to make a loved-one fatally sick because you were exposed to a virus? Are you fond of people yelling at you, insulting you, or calling you names? Does it make you feel good when you are treated inhumanely, disrespectfully, or as lesser than other people?
I’m pretty certain the answer to all of the above questions – by 99% of people – would be NO.
So how come the above are open for debate?
Black Lives Matter is NOT a terrorist organization
The protests happening across the country are in response to systemic racism and unchecked police brutality. That numerous deaths at the hands of police occur based solely on suspicion due to skin color is simply unacceptable.
What’s more, look at how the police forces have reacted. Armed white people marching in the streets? No problem, they march. Unarmed black and other people of color marching in the streets? They get tear-gassed, shot by rubber bullets, beaten, and arrested.
Would you want to be treated like that? I’m absolutely certain the answer is NO.
Take that into consideration if you question the protests or believe the lies about them Trump and his people like to spread.
There is a serious problem in the USA, and it cannot continue to be ignored. Ignoring it is how we have reached this point in history – and change is necessary. Living under threat because your skin is black is not something anyone should endure. That is why Black Lives Matter.
Wearing a mask is common courtesy
I find my masks to be uncomfortable. It’s not pleasant to wear them, and I have tried several different shapes, sizes, and styles.
However – it’s a small price to pay to protect the people I love. It further encourages me, if I do not wish to wear it, to not go anywhere that it would be necessary.
Do I need a mask to walk around outside in my neighborhood? Not really, because I make a point of staying more than 6 feet from anyone I encounter. At a public park or trail with more people around? Yes, I wear my mask. And indoors there is no way I WON’T wear it.
The science says that wearing a mask hugely reduces the potential for transmission of COVID-19, as well as many other viruses. But since the government can’t be bothered to offer adequate testing, nor sufficient contact tracing, I could be an asymptomatic carrier. Like it or not, you could be, too.
Wearing a mask severely lessens the potential for passing the virus if you have it. That’s courtesy. How do you feel – even without a pandemic – when someone sneezes or coughs on you? An adult who doesn’t cover their mouth and nose? Totally rude, right? Not wearing a mask during a pandemic is EXACTLY as rude.
The resistance to the minor inconvenience of wearing a mask is a question of courtesy. Not wearing a mask in public – ESPECIALLY indoors – is rude and discourteous to everyone.
Do you like being sneezed on, coughed on, or spit on? I presume NO. Well, not wearing a mask is the equivalent of you doing exactly that.
Do you like to be treated disrespectfully?
I’m going to go with NO. Yet we are watching numerous people being extremely disrespectful in the name of their own entitlement.
Do you want to eat at a restaurant, go to a bar, get your haircut? If you were a server, bartender, or barber, would you want customers to be nice to you or rude? Do you prefer people to respect you and what you do or disrespect you?
COVID-19 is not gone. Not by a longshot. Yet the drive to reopen the economy, and the insistence of many to not take precautions, mask-up, or social distance is already having an impact. Where much of the world is looking at a downward trend in numbers – the opposite is true of the United States.
The rampant disregard and disrespect in too many people are encouraged by our so-called leadership. The President refuses to set a good example and wear a mask, or to discourage people from gathering in too-large groups indoors without any precautions.
With that extreme arrogance and entitlement as our example, is it any wonder things are so bloody chaotic right now?
What, if anything, can YOU do about this?
Treat people who you want to be treated
It begins with you and me. You get to decide, each and every day, how you treat people you encounter in the world. Kindness and empathy or rudeness and scorn? Loving or loathing? You get to decide in every instance.
It is super easy to get upset, annoyed, and hateful. But meeting a lack of kindness and empathy without kindness or empathy doesn’t help anyone.
Believe it or not, like attracts like. The Law of Attraction is a law of nature just like the Law of Gravity. Disbelief in gravity doesn’t mean you fall off the face of the planet.
Giving bad gets you bad. Which means that giving good gets you good.
And let’s be honest here – even if it didn’t, why wouldn’t you give good? Do you want to receive bad? Of course not. So you need to think about treating people how you desire to be treated.
This is the thing that most amazes me about what is going on in the world today. The level is hostility, maltreatment, anger, and negativity between people is surreal. When did it become more acceptable to be rude than to be kind?
Hence why you and I get to make a choice. When you decide to be kind and empathetic you put more kindness and empathy out into the world.
I prefer to be treated kindly and empathetically. Don’t you?
Think before you…
Write, speak, post, comment, or whatever you put out there. Ask yourself if this is something you’d desire to receive before you share it with the world. Question if it’s adding to the good and being giving or adding to the bad and taking?
Every little bit counts. All of your actions count. Treating people how you desire to be treated matters a lot.
Please take that into account in everything you do. In that way, you and I can act to improve the world one interaction at a time.
Finding and/or creating positivity isn’t hard – but it does require thought, feeling, and action
Knowing how you prefer to be treated by people you encounter in life, you can emulate that in how you treat people. When you choose to treat people as you would be treated, it can help everyone see that there is no need to ignore kindness and empathy, and it further improves matters. That ultimately empowers you.
When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that can spread to people around you. It can create a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.
As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of the current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude.
That can then spread to change the world for the better.
An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.
This is the three-hundred and thirty-fourth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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