Is This The Year We Quit Tolerating Meanness?

I actually thought I was alone in both clamping down on bad behavior and cutting meanness out from my personal life. Oddly, as I noted last week, this seems to be a growing trend. Every where I turn, folks are increasingly saying aloud to others, on social media and to themselves:

“I am done with takers; I can’t give non-reciprocally. I will not take bad behavior any longer. And dishonesty is a no-go too.”

Some recent quotes from the social media of another individual reinforce this trend I am observing:

Next:

So, I’m wondering what’s going on. News viewing is down on some stations/print formats. Think about WaPo’s recent firing of folks post Bezos’ decision not to publish a certain editorial. Ponder the established comic strip creator who quit recently when her paper (WaPo again) refused to print her cartoon that featured (among others) Bezos. Folks are spending less time with ornery people and focusing on their own wellness.

Evidence: If I’ve received one, I’ve received 20, emails about wellness activities recently. They range from yoga to travel to spas to widow/widower groups to pet sites. I’m also offered lots of comfort stuffed animals and pillows. Seems we are not willing (or not as willing) to deal with dishonesty and selfish behavior. Our tolerance has dissipated. Maybe it is even disappearing!

Explaining……

What’s behind this trend (assuming it is a trend)? Is our response an antidote to abundant mean politics? Is it the influence of various kindness movements? Is it a move toward self-compassion (a term I learned from Daniel Pink’s relatively new book on regret)? Have we suddenly said to ourselves: Enough is enough?

I remain a tad stunned by this shift. Now perhaps I am suddenly seeing what has been occurring because I have set boundaries in my own life recently. Good in; bad out.

But, maybe, just maybe, we are actually experiencing a shift in our social fabric and rules of engagement.

Ponder this. We cannot change peoples’ character. We cannot make the mean folks turn nice. We cannot switch takers into givers. We cannot stop narcissism. We cannot change who will be in office for the relative near turn.

Now….with that said:

Consider what we can do in our private, and one hopes increasingly, in our professional lives. What we can change is how we respond to what surrounds us. We don’t have to stomp around. We don’t need to complain. We don’t even need to get outraged. Instead: We can walk away. We can decide for ourselves who should inhabit our small place in and on this vast earth. As the Mel Robbins movement suggests, we can move on. And of course, we can treat folks in our circle well…very well.

Maybe, just maybe, the abundance of meanness, dishonesty and horrible rhetoric and behavior over the past few years has enabled us (forced us) to alter what we do and with whom we share our time, our spaces, our places, our beds.

What Can Change…

Reflect this reality as I’ve noted with some regularity here and in prior posts: we can’t change bad behavior and bad actors. We can’t change election outcomes. We can’t alter the behavior of those who act without regard for others and do not watch their words or their behavior. As we experience all of this though, we can decide that this is not how, and with whom, we want to spend our precious time in this earth.

We can also have hope that if we remove the oxygen from the fires of meanness and nastiness, they will burn themselves out.

That’s right. We have choices; let’s exercise them. And leave behind us or outside of us those who don’t share our respect for and affirmation of kindness, goodness and positivity. And we can exercise these just identified values often and with relish and with pride and with hope.

Try this idea: Meanness has worn out its welcome.

Read that again!