DO YOU WANT TO BE RIGHT OR BE KIND?
 
Author and activist, Anne Lamott, once wrote, "you can either practice being right or you can practice being kind." The two-choice dilemma!
 
When we practice being right, it means that someone else must be wrong. Making someone else wrong is unkind. In addition, being right sets up a competition, and in a competition where one loses and one wins, it's only a matter of time before the other strikes back.
 
Practicing kindness arises from, and sustains a sense of empathy, belonging, connectedness and happiness.  Practicing being right comes from, and perpetuates the sense of insecurity, aloneness and separateness.
 
Chuck Spezzano, a well-known psychologist, once wrote: "Being right is a way of actually hiding how wrong we feel inside."  Therefore, every situation in which we try to be right is a situation where we have lost confidence in ourselves.
 
When we feel the need to defend our position, there is a perception that the other is part of an opposing team.  Kindness, is the realization that what I do to and for you, I ultimately do to myself, because ultimately, we're all part of the same team.
 
The touching story that follows, illustrates this two-choice dilemma - to be right or to be kind?
 
At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended.
 
After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: "When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, could not learn things as other children do. He could not understand things as other children do. Where was the natural order of things in my son?"
 
As the audience remained stilled by the query, the father continued, "I believe that when a child like Shay who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child."
 
Then he told the following story:
 
Shay and I were walking past a park where some boys he knew were playing baseball when Shay asked, "do you think they'll let me play?" I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father, I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.
 
So I approached one of the boys on the field and, not expecting much, asked if Shay could play. The boy looked at his friends then said, "we're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."
 
With that, Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I felt a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart as I watched him, and the boys seemed to sense my joy at my son being accepted.
 
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, he put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, his team scored again.
 
Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, would they let him bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, they gave him the bat.
 
Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as he stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.
 
As the first pitch came, Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would have now  been over, as the pitcher could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman, striking Shay out and ending the game, but instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all his team mates.
 
Immediately, everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled, and made it to first base. Then everyone yelled, "run to second! Run to second!" After catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time he rounded towards it, the right fielder, the smallest guy on the opposing team, had the ball, giving him the first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third baseman's head.
 
Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, Shay! All the way, Shay!" Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base and shouted, "run to third! Shay, run to third!" As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams and the spectators were on their feet screaming, "Shay, run home! Run home!" Finally, Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered for being the hero who had hit the grand slam and had won the game for his team.
 
"That day", the father concluded softly with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world."
 
"Shay didn't make it to another summer," the father continued after a pause. "He died that winter. But he never forgot how he had been the hero that day, making me so happy, and how he had come home to his mother who tearfully embraced her little hero of the day!"
 
We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the "natural order of things". So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Are we going to be right or are we going to be kind? Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?
 
A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats the least fortunate amongst them. You now have two choices:- to be right or to be kind.
 
May your day, be a Shay Day.
 
Feel free to forward this to newsletter to help promote kindness...

Claire Maisonneuve