Logan Drew and Mary Jane Kelly
I go to PT at Lookout Mountain Physical Therapy with Logan Drew, and although he watches me like a hawk and is able to count reps while carrying on a detailed conversation (no slacking off for me), it is always a very fun hour. I’ve gotten to know Sharon, a gal who is usually there at the same time I am, and she is delightful!
"Logan, you are too kind,” she said the other day.
I probably made a smarty pants comment because PT exercises are not easy, and laughed at the irony. But Logan thought for a minute, then said, “Well, I try to be.”
I try to be TOO kind was the translation to me. And a comment that could have easily been laughed off hovered in the room, giving us all pause. First of all, I imagined myself not worrying about being too kind, simply attempting the regular amount of kind. This is something I usually try to do under certain circumstances: if it’s not too much trouble and the person I’m being kind to is deserving as far as I’m concerned. If it won’t cause a wreck, I tend to let a car pull out in front of me in traffic. I practice this old “oh-please-you-go-ahead” in most lines (unless it’s a line for ordering food, getting in line for the restroom, waiting my turn at the hostess desk or doing anything at all at the DMV). Correction: I practice this old “oh-please-you-go-ahead” occasionally if the situation is deemed opportune for me.
Usually letting a car go ahead of me is no skin off my back, but if I know for a fact that car had been acting ugly (tailgating, honking at me, displaying rude hand gestures), I wouldn’t dream of being kind and letting it cut in. So really, that’s not a case of being kind on my part, much less being too kind.
Now if I were to consider being too kind, I should probably disregard the behavior of whoever I’m bestowing my kindness on. Put my judgement aside for a minute.
Let’s just say someone was curt to me or even rude. Why should I be courteous in my response, or actually go out of my way to be kind when it wasn’t warranted?
Well, there are a lot of reasons, reasons lots of us learned before we even started kindergarten.
It’s totally against my nature to turn the other cheek or be nice when it’s not warranted or deserved -in my opinion anyway. So, before I worry about being too kind, I need to just focus on letting someone so in front of me in the lunch line. Like, at all.
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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series “If Bugs Are Banished.” “Making Arrangements” is her first novel and is available in paperback and on Kindle. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.
Ferris Robinson