Please be kind.

Some service worker screw something up? You didn’t get the egg rolls you ordered in your takeout?

Please be kind.

Some receptionist hang up on you by mistake when you called to make an appointment for your cat?

Please be kind.

Did your computer freeze on you — again — and now you have to call the IT guy — again? And you feel like you might lose it?

Please be kind.

What we’ve been noticing, not universally but often enough to see it’s a pattern: People are losing it for no reason.

People are stressed out everywhere. And sometimes that stress seeks relief in all the wrong places.

It’s really easy to blow up at the AAA guy who’s coming to jumpstart your car because you haven’t started it for three weeks and the battery died. Maybe the guy made you wait.

Maybe the guy was kind of rude to you when he got there.

Just because someone else is being rude, or snippy, or short-tempered does not give you license to return the attitude the same way.

Just because the mail was late, or the check never arrived, or the clerk seems inept…

Please be kind.

The way we survive this is for all of us to stop spreading around the anger. There are so many short fuses.

If you can find a way to process your own emotions — through working out, getting into the sunshine and letting it fall on your face, through yoga, through meditation, through healthy choices that make your energy go up in a positive way — then you’re going to be more resilient. You’re going to be someone who stops the spread of the stuff that causes pain.

The virus is real, and it’s spreading — and so is the hatred, anxiety, fear, and general assholiness.

It’s up to you to stop all of that in its tracks.

Please be kind.

Even when you don’t have to.

Even when it’s a stranger, or someone you’ll never see again.

Even when you think they deserve your irritation, fury, or wrath.

Don’t do it. Don’t spread it. Choose different.

Please be kind.