A Road Less Travelled

A while back I was telling Crystal about Panache, a coffee shop on Sheridan. I told her that it was a little too polite for my tastes. Somehow we got from there to the topic of how people can be too polite. Crystal said she thought I would want people to be polite. She assumed I didn’t want them to be rude. I remember thinking that there was a better word for how I want people to treat me. Polite seemed close, but it has some connotations I didn’t really like. Then I hit on the word. I want people to be kind.

Acting politely is acting in the ways your culture has decided are good when you don’t necessarily mean it. This may seem like a skewed definition, but I do think this is the way many people who think about it think. You act politely because it is the proper thing to do and it doesn’t really matter whether you mean what you say or do. Politeness has nothing to do with the state of your heart.

I don’t like people being polite to me. If someone says something nice, but I can tell he doesn’t really agree with what just came out of his mouth it is worse than useless. It makes me wonder about everything else he says or does. Does he really think that? Why did he do that? Is he trying to be considerate or is it just that when he was young he used to get in trouble if he wasn’t polite? Sometimes I wish someone would just tell me if my clothes don’t match or that what I said really wasn’t funny instead of smiling politely or giving me a pity laugh. I really don’t like people just being polite to me..

However, I do very much enjoy people being kind to me. Kindness is comes out of a love for somebody else. It can be an intimate love for a close friend or a general love for a complete stranger. When you are acting considerately towards someone out of a sincere desire to bless that person you are loving them and acting kindly.

When someone is caring and considerate because he is truly trying to be kind I feel blessed by it. Sometimes kindness can even look the same as politeness, but the motivations are very different. Kindness has to be genuine or it isn’t kindness. Politeness can be faked and still be considered polite. If somebody tells me my dress looks very nice and I can tell this person is just being polite then I either completely disregard what he just said or I wonder if there is something wrong with my clothing that made this person feel he had to be polite about it. If someone came to me and told me that my dress doesn’t even match itself (not that this has ever happened) and he (well, actually she) was sincerely trying to be kind by helping me with my appearance then I will actually put some thought into what she has said. I might not agree, but I will consider the matter because the person who brought it up was being kind to me.

The opposite of polite is rude. The opposite of kind is mean. The opposite of kind is not rude. What is rude and what is not is simply what your culture thinks is rude or not. What is kind or unkind has been decided by God and then written down in the Bible. Sometimes kindness looks like rudeness, though that depends on your culture and circumstances. There is a lot of friendly banter between James and I and sometimes it can be downright rude, but it is still kindness because we are enjoying each other’s company by a matching of wits (I usually lose). We are acting out of friendship with each other. We are acting kindly towards each other. Most times at dinner either Seth or I will tell Crystal that the food is really good. We are not just being polite, though it is a polite thing to say. We say what we do (when we remember) out of a desire to thank Crystal for the blessing she has given us by making dinner. It looks the same as a polite thing to say, but the motivation behind our words is very different.

  Okay, so I’ve laid out my case and now I have a question I think y’all might be asking. What does it matter? How does this distinction change anything? Well, I can answer that. I have not the foggiest idea. I really don’t know what if anything should or will change because of what I’ve said here. I know that probably nothing will change in me. I’ve hated people being polite to me for so long I’ve really tried not to do it to anyone else. I’m not sure what, if anything, should change, but I do think the distinction between kindness and politeness is a helpful distinction to have. It’s made it a little clearer to me what I want from other people and what I should give to them. It might also be helpful in focusing on what I want to encourage the children towards. I hope this post will be a kindness to you and yours. If it isn’t you can tell me. You don’t have to be polite.