By Dina Aldabbagh

Gentleness is only to be expected from the strong; it is the weak who are cruel. It takes a lot more effort to practice restraint than it does to react defensively. Those who respond to others not in grace or softness but in rigidity and harshness are individuals who are not strengthened by their lives and minds. They are people who feel beaten down by life, and more often than not, a victim of their circumstances. They believe that as a victim, they need to fight thrice as hard to secure good things for themselves. They believe they need to yell for respect, punish for kindness, and earn every single thing they have. They do not believe that good things will come with ease, but only with fight. 

Thus the fighting man continues to live in rigidity, because he believes it’s the only way to get the things he deserves. He doesn’t believe that just because he deserves it, it will come — even if not from a specific source. No, he feels himself to be at the mercy of his circumstances, and if he doesn’t fight against the circumstances, he will be left uncared for. 

Now let me tell you about the people who do feel loved by life: 

These people live in such ease, such softness. They are okay with nearly everything because they believe things will work out for them no matter what. They don’t worry about the circumstances because they know they are already stronger than them all, and if a fight were to ensue, they could handle it. They live with a “let’s see” attitude because they believe that life is carrying them to the best potential outcome for them. They don’t try to control everything — they flow. They believe deeply in their own worthiness and in the foundational goodness of others. They believe that other people are looking to love them, help them, and support them. They don’t feel the need to beg, convince, or force, because they believe that all the rightest things for them happen with zero push, just allowing. They don’t feel like a victim of their circumstances, but rather like every single thing is working out for them, even in moments where it may look like it’s not.

The latter group of people go through life treating others with kindness; they are gentle. They give grace and are compassionate. They don’t believe that the submission of something is a weakness, but rather a kindness they’re offering up because they are already so well cared for. Those who are generous are generous because they believe they already have so much. Yet those who are unwilling to give allowances, to cede their desires for another’s, or to compromise are the people who feel like they don’t have enough. That’s why they’re so unwilling to give — because they think they’re fighting for every inch of space they take up. To give to another, to them, would be to let their well run dry while filling another’s.

Now, surely we all have to make sure we are taken care of first and foremost, but a noteworthy thing happens when you give to others without expecting it back: you get that and more from the world. It’s an interesting paradox: the more you give, the more you have — because the more others want to give to you. The less you give, the less others want to give to you. It’s not even in getting it directly back from the specific recipient you gave to, but rather it’s in being in the kind of energy that is giving. 

To be the first to give grace, to give a smile, to speak positivity for somebody, to listen — that puts you in an energy of more than enough. You’re deciding to take the stance of, “I can give.” Who can give? Those who have or those who have not? If someone is not generous, I urge you to understand that it’s not necessarily because they are evil, but rather because they do not feel like they have any bandwidth to give. 

Something I began doing at my apartment’s gym was opening the glass doors in front of the treadmill as I walked. I liked looking out at the view and the fresh air was nice. Typically I was in that gym alone, but sometimes others would be there. I’m not the first person to open up those doors, it’s been done before, but everyone typically does leave them closed. One day, I got to the gym and there was an older gentleman there. He was a bit further away from the glass doors. I opened the glass doors and then the screen doors and he “recommended” to me that I keep the screen doors closed. I told him that I actually prefer them both open, and he began to get aggressive with me. He began making a case for why I should leave one set of doors closed, and then said something wildly interesting to me: “Maybe the bugs don’t bite you, but they bite me.”

I gave into his wishes, and closed the doors. I didn’t fight him on it, because I recognized something: he needed that win a lot more than I did. In that one sentence, he told me how he felt about himself — which was a victim of his circumstances. The aggression was more of a plea for care than a desire to overpower me. The sentiment of, “Maybe you don’t need that door closed, but I do” is to say, “Please, I need this. It may seem like nothing to you, but it is to me. Please care about that.”  

He seemed mean, but he was actually just sad. When you can look past the brutal defenses, you can recognize that those who are harsh actually just feel the most fragile. They feel so unstable, so out of a position of power in their lives, that they think they need to fight tooth and nail to get kindness from other people. If he just asked me kindly, “Hey, I’m pretty sensitive to bug bites, would you mind keeping one set of doors closed?” I would have done it no problem. Instead, he believed I was going to fight him on it. So before I ever even said anything, he got into the aggressor position. 

All the most successful people I’ve ever met — in the sense of having great lives and being overall content — have been extremely gracious, kind, and generous as well. Those who give do so because they already have plenty. I think this is a very helpful perspective to understand because we can look at the cruel of the world and understand that they are the ones who need our compassion the most. That’s not advice to be a doormat. I simultaneously recommend to you to stay away from the cruel whenever possible. However, there are many struggling people in this world and that will often manifest as cruelty, so coming into contact with people and behavior like that is inevitable. 

You can organize your life in such a way that you really stay away from people like that as much as possible, but there is no doubt that you will meet people like that. I think the most powerful thing you can do in those situations is to be kind. Kindness, to people like this, is a reset. It is both a blessing and a mirror. You give them one small experience of kindness that they may not otherwise be getting. Further, when you are kind in spite of their harshness, people like that can’t help but recognize that the negativity in the room is their own. 

That’s part of the blessing of being kind. When you don’t lecture anyone, trying to tell them how they “should” be, but instead act in kindness and forgive their cruelty — not punishing them for it, but giving them grace in the face of it — you hold up the clearest mirror possible: “The cruelty here is not coming from me.” That’s the type of truth that someone cannot deny.

I learned this the hard way some time ago when I was a waitress. I was overall very unhappy during my time there, and definitely felt like I was at the mercy of my circumstances. One day I got this table with a larger sized family — parents, numerous kids, aunt, uncle, grandparents. Larger tables generally ask more of you, but this table was nonstop asking me for things. Mind you, I had a full section of five tables on a busy Friday night. So when this family was constantly asking me to run back for thing after thing while I was needing to attend to my other tables, I got stressed. 

I had a work friend there and I complained to him. I was judgmental about this family in my venting. Well, despite the fact that this family was high-maintenance, they were also extremely kind. In the time before they left, I was telling myself, “They probably won’t even tip me well,” which helped me justify my anger and judgmental words. At close, this family walked out of the restaurant, each and every one saying goodbye to me — even the young kids. I walked to their table already feeling bad about my unkind words about them, but when I opened up that checkbook and saw one of the highest tips I ever received, I broke down. 

I was at work, so I couldn’t outwardly react, but I went completely nonverbal. I felt so ashamed. You see, it’s easy to feel justified in your hate when the other party is also unkind, but when they are nothing but kind, you have no leg to stand on — you face yourself. You recognize that it is not them that is the problem, but whatever you’ve got going on with you. 

This was a huge catalyst moment for me. I couldn’t even accept the tip and just zeroed out the check. I couldn’t take back my hateful words, but I could decide not to take something that would only exacerbate my guilt more. From the moment I left the restaurant, I cried the whole way home, and for an additional hour in my car outside of my house. There is something that happens when you are cruel to someone who is kind to you — you feel incredibly small. In that moment, I felt the smallest I ever have — and it was all due to the fact that they were so kind to me. I had no out. There was no way to justify my hate. The “hate” wasn’t actually hatred towards these people, but rather judgment, cruelty, harshness. All because they came in to have a family dinner in my restaurant and expected to be served. What an innocent thing. You see how the response of kindness to someone’s cruelty doesn’t make you smaller but rather it makes them smaller? 

The weak think that kindness is a weakness. The strong know that cruelty is a weakness. Being the one to compromise isn’t a problem when you feel like the vast majority of the time, you are getting what you want. Compromising is only an issue when you feel like you’re never getting what you want. Those people who are so rude don’t actually need your judgment, but your kindness. They are going through it. They may be living a life — maybe very well through their own fault — that they hate. They may be living a life where they feel unempowered, like a victim. They may be going through something that they have no idea how to cope with, and feel that rigidity is the only answer. 

When you can understand that someone else’s cruelty is not the call to action to fight harder, but actually a moment in which we are called to give more understanding and compassion, you start letting things go. You stop getting defensive. You realize that that person is actually feeling weak, and their yells are a cry for help. It doesn’t mean you are the one charged with taking care of them, but just that at the least you don’t have to make it worse — you can be a moment of non-resistance in their life. The choice to not fight back can only be made when you realize that they are not your enemy nor your threat. They are their own enemy, and they do not threaten you.

There will be times, surely, when you do need to fight back. But the truth is that these times are so few and far between. Wisdom is knowing that not every opportunity to fight is your call to action. If you can take the path of least resistance, do it. Stay away from the cruel. They don’t need your fight. You don’t need their presence. You can choose to remove yourself — there doesn’t need to be a fight involved. 

The choice to save your strength is wise. Not every loud person is a threat to you. People have their own struggles and you can choose to not be roped into them — which is done by not taking things personally. When you don’t take other people’s cruelty personally, you recognize that the only fight is within them. 

“Maybe the bugs don’t bite you, but they bite me” is the perspective of a person who feels that they need to fight for basic goodness from others. When the dogs bark at you, you can choose to get down on all fours and bark back, or you can realize…“They’re chained to a fence. Their bark is just a cry for help to unchain them.” 

It’s not about you. Their cruelty was never about you. Once you can begin seeing other people’s unkindness in this way, you free yourself. You realize that it’s never personal, it’s always about the other person. Because even if you did something wrong, the reactions you get from a person who already feels like a victim and one who already feels like a victor are vastly different. People don’t treat you based on who you are, but rather based on who they are. We may call certain traits out a little more in people than others, but at the end of the day, all of a person’s behavior has to do with them. 

Recognize that anyone’s gentleness or cruelty has everything to do with them. It’s not about you. You don’t have to straighten anyone out — like you could anyway. In every moment, all you have to do is walk your path and choose which rocks to jump on and which ones to avoid — and if a rock ever scratches you a bit, recognize that it’s not because you deserve to be scratched, but because the rock you touched was sharp.