Kindness as a Path for Change

I’m exhausted.

You, too?

Since January 20^th, chaos, uncertainty, and disinformation have created disbelief and despair in doses I haven’t experienced in my nearly seven decades. I thought I had prepared. But… no.  

Lately it feels like we’re all riding the wild elephant, unable to get off safely, as much as we wish we could. What destruction lies in our deranged path?

Even being in nature with my dogs isn’t enough to make the daily, almost hourly awfulness go away.

I’ve significantly reduced my news intake. I never play news videos, because somehow hearing the hated voices of the chaos creators makes it even worse. A brief foray onto Bluesky has ended because it’s almost all angst and anger, just “blue” where Twitter’s is “red.” Mostly, I agree with the sentiments, but the likes and encouraging comments only fuel the outrage, devolving into an endless downward spiral into an echo chamber.

There’s little kindness or grace in my social media feeds anymore. Just anxiety and outrage. There’s virtually no “Here’s how we fix it,” either, adding to my frustration and sense of helplessness. It’s a dark hole I work hard to avoid falling into.

My personal Facebook page is 99% about my dogs and life-is-good stuff, like being in nature. I choose that approach purposefully, not because I don’t follow current events and have opinions (I do! Strong, left-leaning ones!), but because venting my feelings and opinions on social media serves no good purpose. Who cares about the level of my outrage? Those who matter most to me already know because we have private conversations.

I’ve often said my Facebook page is like my living room. I will be a gracious and kind host, and if you’re invited in, I expect you to be a gracious and kind guest. We can have different opinions and still be friends. My page is not a salon for anyone’s divisive political arguments. There are more appropriate places for that.

A few days ago, I posted something on my personal page that came as close to political content as I’ve ever gotten:

“Give someone enough rope, and they will hang themselves.”

I remember first hearing this proverb from my father, although the context is long forgotten.

As an attorney, I came to embrace it, seeing it work in real time. Arguing a case in court, allowing opposing counsel or unrepresented litigant ample opportunity to speak without interruption or objection meant that, 99% of the time, they hung themselves. I hardly needed to argue my case to win.

Lately I’m reminded of this life lesson. As hard as it feels in the moment, “giving someone enough rope” is often the only sane response to the chaos they create.

Another proverb: Patience is a virtue. Especially when it results in the figurative hanging of those creating the chaos.

Several friends liked the post, and a few commented on it, noting they understood the sentiment. One jokingly asked, “And karma? Or is that too far a reach?” Another said, “There’s just too much rope, currently.” I responded, “Sometimes it takes time to tighten,” to which he brilliantly replied, “It’s long. Give the loose end to a dog. Let it run.”

But then there was that one friend who chose my post, my page, as a platform for venting all his opinions and characterizations of the current administration and its chaos-causing actions. He started out by noting my approach was “hopeful,” insinuating I was being naïve before proceeding to list all the unfolding horrors while denigrating whole groups of people for their contrary beliefs. Honestly, I didn’t disagree with anything that friend said. Things are indeed horrific. But his comment was a screed. It felt like he was vomiting in my living room, making everyone else there hostage to his vitriol. And, as I find is too often the case, he failed to offer even a hint of suggestions for action or making things better.

Many ridiculed Michelle Obama when she once said, “When they go low, we go high.” I understood her message: Maintain your integrity. Even though later she amended her aphorism when she accused the 2024 Trump campaign of “going small,” I still agree with her. It’s another of the life lessons my father provided: Never lower yourself to an antagonist’s level. Just because the opposition is mean, belittling, and cruel, that doesn’t give you an excuse to become the same. Be better. Point out the lowness, but don’t let yourself slide to their low level.

One of my long-standing rules for social intercourse is: If you criticize something or someone, privately or publicly, you must also offer suggestions for improvement or change. Otherwise you’re simply complaining. Whining improves nothing. Providing a path to action does. Be better.

Believe me, these days I’m angry. A lot. But I choose to not burden others with my anger by venting gratuitously, in detail, without invitation.

My friend’s public derision of my hopeful, patient outlook hurt me. My “give them enough rope” analogy is based on my understanding of history (I have a B.A. in History, focusing on WWII, especially fascism/Nazism) and 30+ years of being in the family law trenches. I firmly believe: Bullies never win in the long run. History judges. Of course, it’s challenging to live through the immediate chaos, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with maintaining hope as a personal coping strategy. Or taking the long view, practicing patience while also resisting and supporting those affected as best I can. Minor acts, small kindnesses, get noticed. Support is real, is felt, offering solace and encouragement.

As Dr. King famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Call me stupidly hopeful or ridiculously sentimental, but I believe justice ultimately prevails. Patience doesn’t equal inaction or acquiescence. Rather, patience as recognition that, individually, I have little power, but with consistency (e.g., exercising my vote; using my words carefully and persuasively), my actions and voice will combine with those of millions of other quiet yet persistent voices and, together, we possess the strength to the bend the moral universe.

When confronted with chaos, disruption, fear, and dismay, all any of us can do is what’s within our power. Our responses are as unique and individual as we are. Collectively, anger can fuel action and change, certainly. I see its value, especially in peaceful protest. But as a sensitive introvert who recoils at the expression of anger, or violence, or being in crowds, public group protest is not my approach. I don’t judge others for whatever approach feels right for them.

I also find myself seeking humor, an antidote to stress.

One thing I’ve always appreciated about we humans is that we choose the issue or topic we’re most passionate about and work it. Over time, we may adopt or add new issues, depending on experiences and circumstances. After many years advocating for victims of domestic violence, especially children and the elderly, my most recent focus has been animal welfare, and more particularly, wolf recovery—their necessary place in a healthy landscape, their right to exist. I use my words, like in my latest book Wild Running, to make my arguments to a wider audience. If I influence even one person to change their negative view of wolves, I’ve succeeded. Quiet advocacy.

Others run with different issues, whatever ignites their passions. Maybe abortion rights, or climate change. There are so many worthy causes. People find something important enough to them to raise their voice or open their wallet. Such individual variety is perfect, because it means that, individually, our appetite and energy for action and change becomes focused and productive, while collectively the broadest swath of issues get attention. There’s space, and need, for everyone who wants to be engaged.

At the same time, though, this single-issue activism, hijacked and goaded by politicians and social media accounts with axes to grind and hidden agendas, has laid our deepest divisions bare, pushing some toward violence and harm. The more we adhere to our viewpoints, the deeper those divides become, the more poisonous the resulting anger. We no longer offer each other the courtesy of listening to opposing views, or make an effort to understand them. We no longer strive to dampen the anger, to remain civil. You’re wrong, I’m right. End of discussion.

But here’s another lesson I learned from those many years in the legal trenches: it’s easier and healthier to offer kindness and hope than to hold on to and spew rage and anger. Anger doesn’t convince someone to join your side, it just pushes them further away. That lesson led me to become a family law mediator. I saw up close how listening, sharing, and explaining viewpoints respectfully can ultimately help people find common ground and collaboration. Agree to disagree while moving forward on the things you do agree upon.

My friend Martha and I had a private Messenger conversation about my “Give them enough rope…” Facebook post and my decision to delete the other friend’s long rant. We talked about what we can control in our worlds and what we can’t. We shared how kindness feels, both to receive and give, how it heals, especially when we’re vulnerable. She shared a Rumi poem that included these two lines:

When some kindness comes to you, turn

That way, toward the source of kindness.

Those two lines encapsulate the approach I was taught growing up, the one I’ve adopted my entire life, especially with those people whose views don’t align with mine but are part of my life. People like my former neighbor Joe.*

I know how grateful I’ve been whenever anyone showed me kindness when I needed it most. I strive to show others what kindness looks like, and feels like, because it costs me nothing. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll turn toward it, even pay it forward.

Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. ~Fred Rogers.

The following story involving Joe is my go-to illustration of the give-and-take of kindness and forgiveness in action.

I first met Joe in 2005, after I bought my lot in Idaho. That summer, I was visiting daily to watch my home’s construction. Joe was probably 65 then, and I was soon to be 50.

Joe had lived in his house on the road leading to my lot most of his life. He was a stereotypical redneck Idahoan, an ex-logger who was vocal about his hated of the federal government and the U.S. Forest Service in particular for their environmental restrictions and regulations. My introduction to Joe was the day he waved me down as I drove past his house. I stopped and rolled down my window. Joe asked me to make sure the construction workers drove slowly, so they didn’t kick up dust. “Of course,” I said. Thereafter, Joe often stopped me as I drove by, just to chat. We started swapping stories and off-color jokes, slowly building a bond.

About a year after I moved into my house, one spring day Joe stopped me as I drove up the road. As usual, I rolled down my window, my dogs waiting patiently in the back for the usual chin wag. Joe leaned his forearms on my car’s door frame, smiling a weird smile.

“You don’t have a cat, do you?” he asked.

“No. Why?”

“I just shot one up in that tree,” he continued, pointing to a tall pine in front of his house. “Rover was barking at it all morning and I couldn’t get him to shut up, so I shot it.” Rover was Joe’s chihuahua-mix dog.

It took me a beat to process what Joe said, that he seemed proud of his solution to the problem of Rover’s barking.

“Joe, that could have been my cat, or Jane’s cat, or some other neighbor’s cat,” I said, anger rising in my voice. Joe stood up straight, surprised at my reaction. Furious, I rolled up my window and drove home. No goodbye, no further words.

I resolved to ignore Joe. What an asshole! I thought. I stopped waving at him as I drove past his house or when seeing him on a nearby road where he frequently walked. No more stopping for a chat when I drove by his house.

About two weeks later, being mud season, I drove my dogs a mile down our dirt road to the closest paved road to take them for a walk. A few minutes into our walk, I saw Joe coming toward us on the same road. I decided to be polite. My default is politeness, even with people I don’t like. That’s how I was raised. Maybe I’ll offer a nod of recognition, I thought, but I will NOT stop to talk to him.

As we got closer, me on my side of the road, keeping my eyes on my dogs, Joe suddenly walked across the road so he was approaching right in front of me, blocking my path. We both stopped, standing a few feet apart, silent. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but was surprised when Joe looked me in the eye and declared, “I’m sorry. It will never happen again.”

I knew exactly what he was referring to.

I gave him a hug. “Thank you,” was all I said.

We both continued on our way.

“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.” Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Here’s the lesson I took away from that encounter on the road with Joe: If you’re a kind and generous person, people want to include you in their lives. They value your friendship, your approval. That creates bonds, even when you have differences. If a person you’ve worked to create a bond with crosses one of your moral/cultural/political hard lines, and you remove yourself from them, they notice. They reflect and decide if they want your friendship, your respect. If so, they recognize what it is you found so distasteful that you resolved to avoid them (cruelty to animals, in my case with Joe), and in order to reestablish the connection, they resolve to change.

That’s powerful.

I could have said to Joe, “Fuck you,” when he apologized. Our estrangement, our mutual disdain and anger, would have continued. Instead, I accepted his apology. I never forgot his cruelty toward that cat, but I forgave him for it because he resolved to change.

A few years later, during the awful summer of 2013, when I had to put two of my dogs down just six weeks apart, it was Joe who shuffled up my driveway the day after I said goodbye to Maia. He stood on the other side of my yard fence gate with tears leaking from his eyes. When I approached, he said, “I’m sorry about your dog.” Somehow he’d heard of Maia’s passing. Wordlessly, I opened the gate and accepted Joe’s hug of empathy as we both cried. Joe and I had always bonded over our shared love of dogs. He offered me kindness when I needed it most, something I’ll never forget.

Will that one-on-one gift of grace approach, against the unrelenting cruelty exhibited by so many toward so many others, work today? I don’t know, but I hope so.

Since moving back to Idaho, Joe and I have reconnected. He’s now 84 years old. Yesterday, he came to see my new house. Knowing he and I are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, I tried to avoid politics in our conversation. But eventually civil discourse and the lack of civility came up, along with how head-swiveling chaotic things have become because of the new administration. Joe parroted the disproven talking point about 150-year-olds getting Social Security benefit checks. I actually gently grabbed the lapels of his jeans jacket, shook him playfully, and said, “No. Joe, it’s simply not true. Please. Fact check things that sound crazy or too strange to be true, because they probably aren’t.”

He didn’t argue with me. I don’t know if I made an impression or not. I hope so.

After Joe left, I wondered if I can keep offering friendship and grace to people who choose to follow and unquestioningly believe “leaders” who intentionally mislead them, outright lie to them, sowing more discord, distrust, and chaos. I don’t know. It’s so hard. But for now, I’m trying. I’m hoping my ethical behavior remains a way of leading by example, that maybe my quiet influence will convince Joe and others to at least ask questions and do some research rather than blindly accept the lies and distortions they read on social media.

Because that’s the only sort of kindness and grace I have left to offer anyone. I’m tired and worn out, which I know is the point of all the chaos. It’s easier for the bad people to stomp on Lady Justice when the rest of us are too tired to defend her, right? In my exhaustion, I can only fall back on my knowledge of history and my belief in the efficacy of persistent hope and resistance. My faith that, over time, Lady Justice prevails.

While I wait for her, though, I’ll do my best to be kind to those I encounter.

Just this morning, my newly found handyman, Kayvon, came by to modify a closet. My dogs alerted me that a vehicle was in the driveway. When I looked out the small window at the top of my front door, I saw Kayvon shoveling last night’s snow from my walkway.

A small kindness, one I especially appreciated because shoveling snow tweaks my low spine. I thanked Kayvon profusely as my dogs greeted him at the door. He seemed embarrassed. “The shovel was there. It was nothing.”

Oh, it wasn’t nothing, Kayvon. It was something profound. You were being kind. I felt cared for.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~Maya Angelou.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Feature photo: Taken 3-15-2025 by my life-long friend Kelly of the flags at her house: an upside-down U.S. flag, denoting distress, flying above a Rainbow/Peace/Be Kind flag.

*Fictitious name.

The two memes included in this piece are ones I made, using publicly available quotes and photos.