A Resolution for a Kinder New Year

Each year as we wind down the calendar year, people start thinking ahead. Many of us will make resolutions or promises to do better or  to change some aspect of our lives. We vow to lose weight and get into shape. Some make promises to quit smoking or quit drinking. We plan to spend more time with family and friends, work less and re-prioritize. The list goes on.

Given our current climate, I think we should make a collective resolution this year. I think we should all promise to be nicer this year.   

If we all started with a base level of “nice” we might end 2018 better than we are ending 2017.

From the political war that is dividing our country to the cyberbullying that is taking place in middle schools, our society has lost its manners. We are losing our skills in empathy and kindness. We are so focused on being right that we are forgetting that while others may differ from us, it doesn’t make them wrong.

Whether it be on cable news or on a busy day in the grocery store right before the holidays, our diminishing ability to be nice could not be more apparent.

For 2018 let’s agree to focus on positivity and being nice.

Research on how our brains work suggests that our thoughts and our behaviors are circular. From an evolution perspective, we are naturally wired to see things negatively to protect ourselves from threat.   Even cave dwellers likely felt better and more content when they were laughing or smiling. They probably felt better seeing things positively but that didn’t protect them from animals who wanted to eat them. As a result, their brains and now our brains fire in such a way that negativity and negative thoughts are our first reflex.  

When someone takes the parking spot at the grocery store or disagrees with our political views, responding negatively is, sadly, a natural response.

The good news is that by changing the way we think and act, scientists say we can rewire our brains to make being positive a more natural response. It starts by being nice.

My resolution for 2018 is to be nice.

This time of celebration and love and peace and family and friends can be wonderful. The hurried and harried pace of the holiday season can also mean short tempers, stress, conflict and worry.  If you need an example, check out Wegmans in the days before a major holiday. The parking lot alone is an exercise in patience. I met my son there one day and he came into the store, shaking his head.  “Some lady just told me off out there” he said. “I don’t even know what I did wrong.”

Frustration and anger begets more frustration and anger.

Watch the television news shows. Check out social media. Listen to conversations around you.  Our collective negativity meter is on overload. We have moved from feeling threatened by that hungry lion to feeling threatened by people who don’t vote like we do or pray where we pray. We disrespect, dismiss and discard.

Donna Farhi, author, movement therapist and yoga instructor, describes “extending time generosity “as a way of being more mindful and of extending positivity to others. We start being nice by giving others our time and focus.

I found this to be true in the past few weeks during holiday preparations. Taking my time, letting others go ahead of me in line, smiling and chatting with other customers or the employees and working hard to change my outlook not only made the experience more positive but I ultimately felt better too.

A smile, eye contact and some brief conversation with the clerk at the store in the mall had me leaving with a sense of the holiday and feeling great. Conversely, my reflexive response to the driver who cut me off – anger, raised voice, elevated blood pressure and hands gripping the wheel – didn’t feel very good at all.

I have found that it isn’t all that hard to be nice once we make the decision to do it even for someone like me whose default is skepticism and sarcasm.

Stop. Pause. Take a deep breath. Remind yourself that the other person has a story too. Reach out with a smile and with kindness. Remember your manners. The Golden Rule reminds us to treat others as we want to be treated. The Platinum rule reminds us to treat others as they want to be treated. Pretty soon, it becomes second nature. Almost immediately, the response we get from others changes us too.

We just need to rewire our brains.

A resolution to be nice in 2018 may sound corny, but who cares? Being nice to others is the start of being nice to ourselves. What we give to others comes back to us exponentially. If we all agreed to do it, just think how much better off we would be.