It’s a thought I have so often, it could become my epitaph.
What is wrong with people?
I thought of that many times over the past week, as people protest public health measures meant to save lives with the best available science. I also thought of a rant my mother often went on. (And she could deliver a pretty good rant.)
The rant actually started out as a commendation for me. I was working in newspapers at the time and journalism, particularly sports journalism, means working odd hours and an uneven schedule. I must have casually told my mother that I had done my grocery shopping at an equally random hour — say 8 a.m. on a Tuesday.
“Thank you,” she said flatly and firmly. She was working full-time in a school, an 8-4 schedule, and she needed to go grocery shopping on high-traffic days and times. “I see so many people shopping on Saturday morning when they could shop any time they want.” Then she trailed off. Her rants always started out strong, but at some point they would fizzle, as if she was afraid to unleash her full righteous indignation.
But her own personal annoyance had a broader implication.
She wished people would be more considerate and thoughtful of others. That they would get out of their own heads and lives and look at what they could do, simply, to make life a little easier for others.
My dad never countered this rant, but I know he would point out that we don’t know the story of all those people crowding the grocery store at the same time my mom was trying to do her weekly shop. They may look to us like they could shop at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday, but in truth, we don’t know their life circumstances and maybe they can’t. Just as we want others to think outside of themselves, so too, must we do the same.
I thought of all those points a lot in the last week, as COVID-19 has put all our lives on pause. People are protesting orders to stay at home and to wear face coverings in public. From what I’ve read, sometimes they’re misinformed. Sometimes they’re willfully misinformed. Sometimes they’re just looking out for themselves and be damned with the consequences for other people. We’re all in this together until I can’t do what I want to do at the moment I want to do it. That’s the attitude that sends me into my own rant of righteous indignation.
And I stand by my belief that we need more kindness in the world. We need more thoughtfulness. We need more people thinking about the collective good than about protecting their individual fortunes, both material and otherwise.
But I also understand it’s more nuanced than that. We’ve seen that in the United States, public health and economic health don’t easily play together. The pandemic has shown us where the holes are — in our health system, in our economy, in our ability to be compassionate and empathetic. That includes holes in my own thinking and reactions to people who have differing opinions.
I’m working on disagreeing with more compassion and kindness.
While I stay home and wear a face covering when I make a quick grocery store run. Because other people’s lives depend on what I do. Our interconnectedness is on full display these days.
