I have been thinking of the state of the world and I am noticing that people would rather be right than be kind.
Fun fact: It can be true that you are a kind person and you’ve been racist or sexist, homophobic, ableist, transphobic…etc etc. You can be a lot of things and still be a kind person.
Both of these things can exist in the same space but I want to show you how to acknowledge how to be both and reconcile the “-ism” or “-ist” part.
Look at the person next to you, hopefully it’s no one or your family cause #Covid, but let’s say there is someone next to you. If you can see the person next to you, guess what they exist and they have emotions and experiences that have nothing to do with you. Just because it doesn’t have anything to do with you it doesn’t mean that it does exist.
If this person tells you that they are experiencing racism: They are.
If they tell you they have a headache: They do.
If they say that it’s hard to watch the news: It’s true.
There is a disconnect between what we experience and what other people experience, we are always viewing the world through out own lens.
Obvs, right?
We will never know what it’s like to be someone else but we can try to understand them.
To think about your own thinking is something called: Metacognition.
This is a muscle that goes mostly unused but can be strengthened with meditation and reflection. Metacognition allows us to examine our biases, judgements, and prejudices. It also allows us to examine the way we talk to ourselves.
I’ve previously told you that I go into instant rage when I spill things and I have to stop and tell myself out loud to not call myself a name. I have only been able to stop this kind of behavior because of metacognition.
Let me give you some examples of the way this might happen in your life.
Example 1: This bitch really just bumped into me! Are you serious?? This Target is so damn ghetto. Example 2: Dang, that was hella rude of that lady. Oh she is carrying a kid, she must not have seen me. *goes to dollar section to get things I don’t need*
Example 1: This is reactionary which, I would argue is the opposite of metacognition. You are not thinking about how you are thinking, you are reacting to what just happened. It’s emotional. You think that this person is out to get you, they didn’t even consider you, and why not insult them and the Target you’re already in a bad mood.
Example 2: This has a pause to consider the other person. It validates their experience as a mom and as a person. It does not need to insult because there wasn’t an insult that happened it was just an accident. This type of thinking says that I don’t really like what happened but I can see the other person’s perspective.
The conversations I have seen lately only between friends and family have been Example 1.
Reactionary, emotional, and full of insults.
What my hope is that conversations turn out more like Example 2, asking the question “What was the like for you?” rather than “What is your problem!?”
Just because you’re not a mom rushing through Target, you can see that she exists and she is having her own experiences.
Just because bumping into you was wrong but it doesn’t mean that you are right to be insulting. You’ve heard these phrases before: “Two wrongs don’t make a right”, “Treat others the way you want to be treat” but it is so hard to practice the when you want to be right.
Metacognition helps to examine why you want to be right and the truth is it might have some racist undertones. How many times have you judged someone by the color of their skin without knowing it? I have and I don’t want to pretend that I haven’t.
I am still a kind person that does kind things but I have been wrong because
I am human.
To say this a different way, if you don’t agree that the Police should be defunded can you at the very least acknowledge that there are people being hurt by this system and why they would want this?
It is not about being right or wrong it is about acknowledging that someone else is hurting.
There is a human experiencing pain, PERIOD.
Do YOU want to be shot?
No.
Guess what, neither does anyone else. Taking a little time to just think about that instead of being “right” about defunding or not defunding the police acknowledges the other person exists and is experiencing hurt.
I understand that is a simplistic statement, and does not take into account the huge systematic issues in this country.
But what I am asking, is that you put down your need to be right and reactionary and to see the human across from you experience the same events differently.
My hope is that the next time you feel defensive or reactionary or may even want to call someone a “Snowflake” for being offended, that you use metacognition and you think about the thought you just had.
I’m rooting for us. I have hope the world is still a kind place.
Love,
AC
Originally published at http://thislatinalefthome.com on September 10, 2020.
