by Kent SterlingAugust 7, 2020

We have reduced ourselves to protesting both the need to wear a mask and our right not to. What are we doing?

About 50% get really cranky, answered the Sams Club security guard tasked with reminding shoppers a mask is required attire for entrance.

I had forgotten my mask, and when she reminded me, I thanked her. When I returned, I asked what percentage of people are upset when she reminds them.

Whatever your belief is about wearing a mask, treating people like inconveniences put on Earth to make your life more challenging is just bad policy.

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These are tough times. People are on edge. They are either terrified by the possibility of being exposed to COVID-19, or they are brazenly indifferent to it. Each sect responds to the other with negativejudgment. Add the protests for racial equality and defunding the police, political leaders of both parties inciting discontent with their counterparts, and our unquenchable thirst to be annoyed, and 2020 has become a giant pain in the ass.

The correction is simple. Just be nice.

Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendys, always had posters with that phrase hanging in his restaurants Just be nice! When people smile at you, smile back. When people wave at you, wave back. If no one smiles or waves, smile and wave anyway.

If you are having a bad day, try to make someone elses day better. Its not all about you, dummy! The world doesnt spin at your convenience, and everyone in it was not put here to agree with you.

Heres a thought you might be wrong about some of the things you believe. Somewhere over the past 30 years, we decided that being right is the most important thing we can be. Its inconceivable to each of us that our theories about life and how to live it are totally screwy, and yet many of us disagree on almost everything.

We talk more than we listen and I mean actually listen rather than just await your turn to talk again. We listen, we learn. But learning means acknowledging we there is something we already do not know, which makes it difficult for some off us.

Admitting a mistake is an implausible notion, unless someone else is doing it. Being caught making a mistake sends people into an out-of-control emotional tailspin.

We measure our worth as human beings based upon how many zeroes we have onour bank statement. Our scoreboard has real numbers, and those who dont measure up are seen as inferior. Parents spend crazy money to send kids to colleges believing tuition is an investment that will pay off in cash, rather than wisdom and knowledge. How silly.

These are dark times, but not because of out reaction to COVID-19 and racism. Those are the symptoms, not the cause. Sadly, the cause is far more insidious our rampant insensitivity and greed. And the cure is the reversal of our current attitude toward life itself.

We are here for 80 years, give or take. No amount of money buys us immortality, and yet we continue to step on those around us to become more efficient earners of wealth for ourselves and others. Instead of helping each other smile more, we deride givers of happiness and decency as saps who just dont get it.

I usually write about sports, but I have had enough of callousness for this lifetime a great deal of which I have exhibited myself. I apologize for that. If you are one of the thousands of drivers I have flipped off over the years, I apologize. If I made you sad with an offhand remark I found amusing, I apologize. If you felt I judged you as insignificant 10 seconds after we met, I apologize, although I was probably just distracted by something.

Life is sosimple yet we choose to complicate it by running a race no one really wins. Dave Thomas has it right. Just be nice. Im going to try it.

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Our greed, judgment, indifference, and misery are senseless and have to stop now! - Kent Sterling