I used to be cheerful and friendly with everyone I encountered, not just my friends and family. But now I find it far more difficult, especially being friendly to those with whom I vehemently disagree.
It’s hard to be friendly to hypocrites who are constantly virtue signaling. They drive hybrid cars and only drink organic, humanely grown free range coffee or fully rain forest alliance certified tea (this is a real label I saw on a box recently!) from their local barista. They gather in klatches in their yoga pants with oversized sunglasses griping about what they’re having to pay for their childrens’ tutors and piano teachers while squeezing lemons over their avocado toast.
It’s hard to be friendly if you’re an old white guy, thus automatically the beneficiary of white male entitlement and by extension, immediately viewed with suspicion as the enemy. In the bastions of the politically correct you’re the product of white privilege and therefore what you have wasn’t earned but confiscated from minorities and various victims. Oh, and did I mention you’re also a racist, by definition?
It’s hard to be friendly when everything you believe in and stand for is constantly trashed and all the drivel spilling forth from people’s mouths is accepted by so many around you with understanding nods and agreement.
It’s hard to be friendly when so much of what Hollywood produces celebrates aberrant, uncivilized or downright evil behavior, behavior which viewers slow and gawk at like the accident by the side of the road but can’t help themselves, and then wonder why their children’s language is what we used to call that of a drunken sailor!
It’s hard to be friendly when you hear Leftist sound bites and talking points repeated continuously, no matter how outrageous the lies and deceit. From an educated but typical Leftist neighbor in our community I recently heard repeated the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “concentration camps” label given to the southern border detention centers. As much as I would have liked to pleasantly smile and gently try to explain how ridiculous that charge is, I stifled my revulsion and maintained a blank expression. I regret not speaking up.
But that’s the problem. Traditionalists care about being friendly. The Left doesn’t care what labels they apply to others with whom they disagree, how condescending, how insolent, how rude, how impolite, how uncivil, how discourteous or disrespectful. They don’t care about being kind at all. They revel in being rebellious – they actually think it’s cool (!) and even those who don’t overtly engage in unkind behavior are complicit by their silence and tacit acceptance of such behavior.
On the other hand, yesterday I saw a segment on Fox News remembering Tony Snow, the former journalist and White House Spokesman for President George W. Bush who died from cancer eleven years ago at the too young age of 53. He was quoted as saying something that immediately resonated. I quickly tried to look up the quote but while I found lots of great things Tony said, I couldn’t find the exact words I had just heard, so I’ll paraphrase them as closely as I recall.
“You don’t have to donate a million bucks to change the world. A smile and kind word will do just fine.”
Once again someone said it far better than I ever could.
In the face of withering Leftist fire, it’s hard to be friendly, but “a smile and kind word will do just fine”.
Thank you Tony!
