ON KINDNESS & UNDERSTANDING

This isn't my usual style or subject for posts, but I found this video on Ayden's tumblr, and I couldn't help but share it. It's from the Youtube channel of Roger Waters,  member of Pink Floyd.

These kinds of videos are, admittedly, cheesy. But asides from that, there's so much truth in them.

I went to a restaurant this month, during peak hour on a Friday night. The entire staff were rushed off their feet. I overheard a waitress asking the manager why there couldn't be more staff on - the reply was that they couldn't afford to. Me looking around the room absentmindedly resulted in a waitress immediately asking me if my food was taking too long; the poor girl looked so worried! All of this made me feel like the staff were doing their best, and I didn't mind waiting for my food - what harm does it really do us to wait half an hour? In reality it'd take me longer than that to cook myself dinner at home.

However the table next to us thought differently. They moaned continuously, complained every five minutes, rolled their eyes at every waiter passing, and eventually called over the manager. The manager was forced to 'do something', and in the event of not being able to do anything really, he just told off the waiter in front of the whole restaurant. These people didn't get their food any quicker for the fuss - it wasn't a service issue, simply the fact that there were so many people in the restaurant and food only cooks so fast. What irritated me the most about their behaviour (aside from the fact that it unnecessarily ruined the waiter's night, filled ours with complaining, and didn't achieve anything) was that they had their son with them. He spent his whole evening huffing and sighing dramatically, copying his parents rudeness and learning this way of interacting with others. In the end, they ruined their own night by getting angry about something that couldn't be changed.

A little kindness and understanding go a long way - there are so many huge issues in this world that we've yet to solve, and if we're going to make our world a better one, we've got to start at the bottom.