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Try Turning Off The Outrage Machine

I’ve stopped following the news, and I have stopped engaging on my personal Facebook account. A simple reason has pushed me to do this. The outrage machine, at last, has exhausted me. But I have learned so much more in the silence of turning it off.

I can’t listen to any more stories about war, conflict, violence, political buffoonery, grievance seeking, or the collapse of the environment. I can’t indulge in anyone’s opinions on any of these matters, my own included. “Oh, that’s a cop out,” some will say, and with even a degree of validity, but I think one comes to a point in one’s life where one has to ask why one is doing something. What matters and what must come first? I can no longer leave consuming news media anywhere on that list and at the same time put my practice of kindness first.

“Well, if you don’t know about the details of the refugee crisis in Syria, how can you feel sufficient compassion for it?” some might object. But I don’t think one needs the details of the suffering of other lives, human or other, to feel compassion towards them, especially when knowledge of those details comes with so much with so much toxic manipulation of opinion.

In all frankness, few people who read about these issues do so in the service of open compassion. Rather, the news serves as a pretext for whipping up outrage, spiraling sharing and opinionating around each crumb of information, regardless of its truth. In order to keep us reading, sharing, and commenting, we are subjected to a deluge of reasons to get angrier at “them” for doing or not doing something, at “him” or “her” for saying or not saying something, at “you” for sharing or commenting in a certain way.

Enough!

And the result of stopping? From inner peace grows the strength to act. Every moment, every quantum of emotional energy that I’ve freed by unhooking from the outrage machine has come back to me multi-fold, with more productivity, greater impact, and deeper kindness.

I have found I can redirect my attention with the force of intention, not dispersed into an outrage that serves no one well and that improves nothing meaningfully. In other words, I have taken back control of that attention, away from the outrage machine that uses my emotions and beliefs to disseminate its products and to bring me back to the trough again and again. I find my time better spent in making a better world than in reading about a worse world.

And, for reasons I still wish to explore but which I still know hold true, I firmly believe that I have not surrendered to ignorance. Instead, I have simply moved along, to running my own machine of kindness and love, to building up steam towards knowing and doing what matters.

Confession: It took me months to build up the courage to form and then act on this principle. It seems to fly in the face of all of the values of good citizenship and informed intellectualism that I have absorbed over the years. So much so, that I have felt reluctant even to admit what I have done or face the stigma of “not knowing what’s going on.” But after a few weeks of doing it, in the face of such freedom, I can’t refuse the call to share what I am doing and why.

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An Anti-Resolution Revolution

We all know that New Year’s resolutions, for the most part, fail. Beyond setting us up for guilt and unhealthy self-criticism come February, resolutions prove ineffective by draining our ego and our willpower, without an authentic grounding for change. I have tried them, with middling success. I’ve tried the alternatives, everything from writing a manifesto for the year to elaborate matrices of written goals broken down into achievable steps. The result? Some progress, but honestly, for what?

In 2015, I tried a new technique for capitalizing on the arbitrary but still meaningful change in calendar year: defining a theme for the year. This year, I committed to the theme “make.” I printed out that one word and hung it around my office so that I could see it from every line of sight. Over the course of the year, among other things, I wrote more than I have in a long time, I took a painting class and created a few paintings, and I even founded Kindness Communication. Without holding myself to specifics or berating myself for missed objectives, I am coming out of the year stronger and more focused, and I believe that themes versus resolutions offer us a kinder and more effective path to personal growth.

For 2016, I have chosen a new theme: “look up.” I like that it means a wide range of things, from authentically meeting the gaze of people whom I encounter and sending them kindness to eagerly, optimistically embracing the future, despite the endless churning of bad news that can easily become an addiction. I see the phrase “look up” as shorthand for taking a position that embraces and engages with my surroundings with greater focus and connectedness.

While I couldn’t tell you now how looking up will manifest itself in concrete actions I take in 2016, I feel confident it will serve as a powerful tool for me as I literally and figuratively meet the year ahead of me with a direct gaze.

With that in mind, if you followed suit, what would you choose as your own defining theme for 2016, rather than making resolutions?

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Small Kindnesses And Holiday Depression

I would like to offer three reminders for kindness practitioners to help boost spirits during the holidays. We all know very well the truth of these simple propositions. The suggest a simple recipe we can use to spread healthy, positive holiday cheer.

  1. Many people feel an unexpected but still familiar sense of depression at this time of celebration.It may stem from personal memories, regrets, loneliness, feeling left out, feeling guilty for not seeming as chipper as those around us. Not getting enough sunlight may contribute further. Regardless of whichever personal combination of these factors affects individuals, the impact can result in pain, withdrawal, and sometimes even unhealthy behaviors.
  2. Showing even small acts of kindness to people can help alleviate their feelings of depression.We don’t need grand gestures of charity and holiday cheer, which may even play into the triggering factors in holiday depression. In many cases, feeling more empathy, more inclusion, more validation, and the like can help dispel depressive feelings and thinking.
  3.  Acts of kindness make the kindness practitioner feel better, too.We all benefit from an improved outlook and increased positivity when we act kindly towards others. Study after study has explored and validated the virtuous cycle of greater empathy and increased sense of interdependence sparked by acts as simple as smiling, greeting, helping, and connecting.

From these three, we can infer a simple holiday recipe as warming as any cookies or eggnog.

  • Take your best heart
  • Add small acts of kindness
  • Spread liberally.

Serves everyone.

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Morning Kindness

When I wake up in the morning, bleary-eyed, thinking about going back to sleep, I like to remind myself of what I can do with the day ahead using this simple mantra.

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Three Thoughts On Kindness And Language

I strongly believe that the language we use frames how we think about the world. For that reason, I also believe that we adjust our approach to the world when we adjust the words we use to think, speak and write about it. When we choose to enhance our practices in the world, as I have chosen with kindness, we can have noticeable impact when we reflect on how our words work on our minds and hearts.

Recently, I have been focusing on eliminating three very common words from my mental framework, in order to fine-tune my kindness practice: “is” (and all forms of “to be”), “not,” and “should.” Why?

“Is”

When we think/say something “is” something, we impose a certain reductiveness, equating what we say about it to the entirety of its being, even if just temporarily. When I think, “I am tired,” I foreclose so many other aspects of my feelings, intentions, and position in my own world. Even the subtle shift of thinking that I “feel” tired reinforces the reality that will have more energy later, that I honor my other feelings, and so forth. Or taking it further, I can say to myself, “I did a lot of good work today,” or “I want to get extra sleep so I can do my best tomorrow,” and suddenly, my thoughts don’t judge me or reduce me to one small aspect of myself at that moment. Instead, they open me to reflection and to action.

Similarly, think of what our words do when we say “you are mistaken,” or “she is homeless.” Again, we plunge ourselves into judging another, and reducing that other to our verdict rather than saying instead “I’d like to explain myself better” or thinking about potential acts of kindness.

You can always think of a replacement for “am/are/is” thinking, in a way that makes you an agent of kindness and a wielder or your own intentions. I have found, in making this change, that my thoughts of kindness to the world around me increase, and it makes my writing and communication stronger as an added bonus.1

“Should”

The language of external, abstract obligation tends to separate us from our own inner sense of purpose and our opportunities to inspire collaboration with others. Words like “should”2 introduce a sort of implied ultimatum into our thinking and communication. “I should finish this,” or “I should meditate every day” — well, what if I don’t? How much more constructive for myself if I say “I will finish this,” or “I will meditate every day so that I can think and act more mindfully.”

And when we communicate with others, every “should” shuts down a means for us to create shared mission, when a simple “let’s” can rally and inspire instead.

So, I see little use for “should” in my own life as I pursue my own kindness practice. Directed at myself, it feels like a weapon against self-compassion and personal motivation. Directed at others, it feels like a power play and a disacknowledgement of the value and energy my interlocutor can contribute to whatever goal or context we share.

“Not”

I’ve only just begun to focus on the word “not,” on my intention to avoid it, and on the mechanics of how to do so. Rather than thinking in negative terms, I would rather think positively, using statements that frame things in terms of what I see, feel, want, intend, etc. But my thinking depends heavily on dialectical contrasts, where I want to say something like “does not X, but instead Y.” If “Y” matters more, then why put focus on X at all? While contrast does help create clarity, I’ve started to think that I would rather use positive than negative contrasts (as I am doing even in this sentence by stating it as an active, positive preference).3 Dropping “not” opens up the opportunity to think more consciously about change, growth, evolution, development, etc.

Reduced use of “not” ties into the practice of kindness because it gives greater faith to what or who I am thinking about, rather than what I think about them, or my negative judgements about them. Rather than negating a perception in my own mind, I am trying to look more carefully at that matter from the external point of view. In other words, I only have to say something “is not” or “does not” if somehow, I am combatting something I previously concluded or imagined.

Honestly, I struggled to articulate my thoughts about “not” without saying “not,”and I don’t think they have fully developed. But I do remain convinced with all the certainty of strong intuition that avoiding it, along with “is” and “should,” will make me a stronger, kinder person.

Notes

  1. One exception: don’t drive yourself crazy trying to replace “to be” when it’s just for grammatical purposes, in cases such as “I am going,” “it is raining,” etc.
  2. Their cousins “must,” “have to,” and “need to” have similar effects.
  3. I am thinking of “positive” and “negative” here in philosophical terms rather than meaning “only say nice things and think nice thoughts.” To “posit” is to put something forward or assert it, rather than contradict or negate.
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Kindness To Animals In Business

Kindness To Animals

People occasionally ask me why I speak of kindness to animals and kindness in business in the same breath. And I, too, have wondered whether these are parallel moral passions, or part of a consistent ethos. Even though they feel intuitively congruent, I feel the need to connect them with more rigor.

What I have concluded is that kindness to animals constitutes a core capability of compassion. Animals exist in a world of feelings and perceptions that we cannot access. One could argue the same for humans, as well, but with animals, the stakes for empathy are higher because of the greater distance between their worlds and ours. Our ability to be kind to them defines the outer limits of an empathy where our kindness to fellow humans sits in a comfortable and secure center.

If we can accept the imperative to treat animals well and acknowledge that their worlds are as legitimate and as subject to equal ethical consideration as our own, we can certainly treat our fellow humans and our fellow colleagues well, too. We can acknowledge their diversity and their unconditional entitlement to that consideration independent of power relations. As with animals, the worlds of our peers and of our customers may differ, but not our accountability for how we treat them.

And it goes further. Kindness to animals also enables a shift in attitude from exploitative dominion, viewing them as merely a means to an end, to responsible stewardship, viewing them with full faith in the integrity of their interests. As leaders and colleagues within our own organizations, as users of resources to which we add economic value, and as providers of services or products to our customers, there, too, we can map the way we treat animals onto a larger responsibility for care of our environment and the feeling beings within it.

More than mere metaphor, I believe we can intentionally shift from transactional to interdependent action in business, just as we do with friends and family and with non-human beings, to the greater benefit of all. The result: kinder practices in how we view the environment and in how we view labor, and deeper, more profitable, and more sustainable relations with our customers. Between these forms of kindness we find not only compatibility, but also congruence. The practice of one reinforces the outcomes of the other.

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Shifting From Offense To Kindness

From Offense To Kindness

I find it hard to feel offended by other people, because I so rarely empower their opinions to have an impact on my self-esteem, and because I shift quickly to thinking about the context behind their opinion. I’m more interested in understanding the pain and ignorance that led them to the point of having the negative belief in the first place. These negative beliefs create opportunities for compassion and kind action, which become a much more constructive response to the situation than feeling and expressing offense.

This shift does not preclude impassioned response. It simply creates a better foundation for making choices about how and whether to respond. It’s possible for us to train ourselves to note mindfully that our sense of self-worth has been threatened without letting that threat set the tone for forward dialogue. From there, we can decide where to act along the spectrum from walking away, with empathy, to intervening, with hope.

The more we do this, the better our instincts about what works will become, and the more quickly we’ll be able to carry out this shift in ourselves. As it becomes instinctive, we find that offense is no longer even the starting point. Our response begins at empathy. From there, our chances to be heard and to heal the negative beliefs will bloom.