Trying to Be a Decent Human

    At least one person I know has no faith in humanity. He fully expects people to betray others for their own personal gain. And by his own admittance, he does the same thing because “people are hypocrites”.
    I may be naive when it comes to how people are. I may lack vision or knowledge or understanding. I know not. But I have to say, from the opinion that is mine currently, his logic is really fucking stupid. Yet, I know he isn’t alone. I’ve mentioned this before, but we humans are herd animals. We follow a few shephards to whatever end because that is what they say we should do. The common folk will follow people from famous celebrities all the way over to that popular kid in the tenth grade. We follow because it is easier. Because it requires less effort from our own selves. Because it’s convenient. 
    I’ve noticed this a fair amount working in retail. Customers will yell at me about my failures in life when they are slightly inconvenienced because it is easier for them to take that anger out on me than it is to admit their own mistakes. They will treat me like garbage because their day went sour and it is much easier to pass that frustration onto someone else, rather than hold it down until they’re in safe company to vent about it. They will treat me as an object that solely serves them for their entertainment because it’s easier than getting their act together and treating a person as a person and with respect.
    We can choose to play victim to humankind by acting like life is a free for all and every man is for himself. We can carry out shit behaviors because others have done the same thing to either us or someone we bore witness to. We can spit on the homeless because some of them stole from a place or creeped a person. We can scream at the cashiers because some of them were rude. We can grab at the waitresses, tell them to give a hug because some of them are more flirtatious and bring the occasional customer home for the night. We can assume people of different races are problems because some others from their homelands birthed chaos. We can be shits to one another. It’s much easier, requires less effort, and is far more convenient. 
    It takes strength and patience, and hope to face each person one encounters when they are socially awkward, afraid of interaction, and start the day in a bad mood because their sad feels hit them all at once at nine in the morning. There have been countless days where I would come home from work and just want to curl up in a ball and die. Hell, I've cried myself to sleep four times already this week. We all have problems and fears, and emotions that sometimes threaten to drown us. And even when I’ve had a wretched day, even when everything has gone wrong and I feel worthless and despised, I wake up the next day and act as though I’m just peachy. I sign into my till and I greet every customer as though they are an old friend. I smile and joke and work to brighten their day. Until they start to act like I’m beneath them, I am friendly and charismatic, only losing some of the cheerfulness when they lash out. Even as I am dying on the inside and holding back tears of anger, I serve people as though I haven't lost anything in life. 
When I pass people begging on the street, I nod to them and smile so I acknowledge their existence, though I have nothing to give, I don’t pretend they don’t exist. I did it to one fellow so often, he would ask me how I was doing and if I was alright and I would tell him and ask him the same each day I passed him. I nod to passersby as well and get a flutter of giddyness when they nod and smile back. I see their eyes light up because the gesture was so unexpected from a hobbit in a hoodie and flannel who looks more like they’d pickpocket a man than smile at him. From a simple movement I’ll suddenly have strangers who would have just passed me in silence say “hi” or “how’s your day?”. In the span of seconds we two people have a fulfilling conversation just by exchanging a couple sentences. And whereas they were ghosts before, now they have light in their eyes, a personality that shows through from the change in their posture, a kindness that comes in from their smile. 
I range from constant tiredness to exhaustion. Every waking moment I think about how much I can’t wait to go to sleep. To put the effort in to converse with people in the charming way I do, is draining, but it pays off when I make a fella down on his luck smile or create a following of customers that specifically come to my till because they enjoy my charisma. I am plagued with semi-frequent-melancholy-feels but I am not about to make someone else endure what I do because that doesn’t help anyone. 
Similarly to the gent I mentioned at the beginning, I don’t fancy people and the horrible shit they are capable of doing. Dis-similarly to him, I do everything I can to not be like them. Why would I do unto another the hateful things someone has done to me? Why would I pass that on and keep the cycle going? Is that not madness? We all want humanity to be better, yet we repeat the worst aspects of us because someone else did. This is why so many of us have given up and stopped caring and don’t try. This is why the misery overtakes the majority of us because we are so wound up in taking revenge on our own species that we forget that we can stop it altogether. Everyone has been wronged, betrayed, hurt, humiliated. The feelings we all felt in those low moments do not need to be passed on. 
Though it takes more strength, we can reconfigure our methods of relieving ourselves of said feelings another way. We can be kind and honorable and respectful and trustworthy out of spite, to show those that ruined us in some way that we will not fall to be their equal, we will instead rise and be better than them. Will it potentially cause more pain and heartbreak? Aye, it will. Open blinds won’t hide the storm outside, but should you close them, you’ll never see the rainbow at the end. The best emotions and sensations come from the bonds we make with one another, if we close ourselves off to everybody, we will never truly be happy. 
We are strong, resilient creatures. Over time our wounds and hearts and souls will heal from the trauma they endured. When you pick yourself up for the thousandth time, don’t surrender to repeat what broke you down in the first place. By every kindness you pass on after that, there will be someone that you touched who will feel compelled to do the same. We can treat one another the way we ourselves wish to be treated. That isn’t just a phrase your elementary school teacher kept repeating. It’s a promise that each one of us can make and fulfill and ultimately create a wonderful future. Our historical discords are only doomed to repeat if all of us choose to stay on our arses and refuse to change anything. It’s time to stop being lazy and instead go out and do our best to be decent humans. 
Say hello to your neighbor. Hold a door open for someone. Thank the bus driver when they deliver you to your stop. Tip the waiter that brings you your meal even if it doesn’t taste awesome. Help an old lady find the prune juice in a supermarket you don’t work at. Take up martial arts or rugby or archery or boxing to get out everything that’s miffed you that day because you didn’t take it out on anyone you interacted with because you know that it’s a dick move and no one comes out happy from that. Trick everyone you encounter to think that your day went swell and then find a deserted place and scream into the abyss. Balance. Release the fury, spare the people.
Start with the smile and nod dear readers and see how such a little movement can lift you up so. I’ve mentioned it before but there is a wonderful aspect to life that allows great pleasures to come from the simplicity of things. To find, what is seen to be miniscule, that which brings joy is a victory that stands unmatched. So go, be victorious in changing our treacherous ways through the simplest of kind gestures. Make our tomorrows worth indulging.