Category Archives: kindness

08.09.21
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A lesson in kindness from a teenage boy

While standing in the spray paint aisle today, I heard the old man coming before I saw him. Significantly overweight, puffing out with each breath, perspiring and a two pack a day deep cough and of course, no mask. My irritation was well learned and the thought I had was 1] that had better not be a COVID cough you old expletive and 2) do you have any idea how close to death you sound. I make no excuses for my thoughts. They were my thoughts and I own them.

As he moved to the checkout, he immediately started huffing and bitching about the cost of whatever he was buying and then the famous words…Thanks, Biden.

As I moved closer to the checkout counter with my paint, he started berating the polite and clean cut teenage male clerk because he didn’t like the size of plastic bag he was being offered. The conversation proceeded with this story’s young hero offering the old man a much smaller bag to which the old guy began to aggressively shake the now-filled bag … telling the young hero that he could get even more items in this small bag….SEEEE!

As the old man exited the store, I approached the counter with my two cans of paint and dishwashing brush and politely told the young clerk that it wasn’t important to me which bag he chose and then I shook my head signaling I thought the previous customer’s picture was in the dictionary beside the word ass!

The sweet hero in this story grinned at me…and said it’s ok. He was having a bad day….we didn’t have what he was looking for when he first came in!

The comment speaks for itself. I chose not to say anything else to the young, kind clerk. He knows who he is and I am honored we crossed paths today!

namaste

10.20.20
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I went a little bat shit crazy, Dear Diary,

on the phone this morning…..This is really the first time I can remember that I’ve lost control with a business on the phone. But I know it happens after 30 years as a 911 dispatcher.

This business was in charge of sending me medical supplies in June…I received them in August because they were shipped to a different person in a different city who happened to be different gender. A couple phone calls to their business office, I learned that I was wrong because their records showed that the supplies had been sent and received by me because their computer said so. I finally was able to make my case with someone with “service skills”.

But the story does not end there. They send me a bill but had not filed with my insurance….said they had…but my insurance company said nope, no they haven’t. 2 phone calls and 3 emails later, I gave up because their business office told me I was wrong because the computer said so. Ok. Whatever. I didn’t feel this was my problem anymore. I had my supplies, they didn’t have the money and I had kept documentation of correspondence.

Until the phone rang at 8am this OCTOBER morning from the company telling me they were having trouble filing my insurance because they had the wrong information for me.

My kind and professional demeanor moved to the back seat as I let loose unloading on “Tara” what I thought of the company, their lack of public service and my frustration level which seemed like she could probably figure out depending on what her computer told her. The anger just flowed very smoothly from my mouth to her ear and you know what…I felt better. I’m sure “Tara”, NOT wearing HER public service voice, did not go to work armed for rampage this morning. I remember how it felt to start my morning with a yeller, but my guilt is only about a 2 on a 10 scale. And so, I leave the frustration right here, right now, Dear Diary. I don’t need to carry it with me…

The end

07.26.20
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Scratching each other’s eyes out

Pandemic hours and days roll right into each other. But, quite frankly, I’m not sure I remember ever living such a simple life with this level of contentment. With that being said, I am filled with compassion for my family and friends who are navigating this new path of daily living. Complicating that confusion is the information we receive from our “leaders” and the media, thus the only reliable guidance available is inner wisdom ……. that inner knowing that we file away page by page as we experience daily life…brick by brick day by day over the years. We are each living from our gut…societal “leadership” is out there but the voice is hard to hear….and I often feel we must compromise ourselves and our instincts because “leadership” seems to compromise its integrity by refusing to follow a moral compass when we need it the most.

Even the COVID-19 virus is separating us. An illness…a virus! At this time, we cannot agree on anything. I found the following on Facebook. I appreciated the dichotomy of raising our children with busy, busyness vs children experiencing a different way of growing up. Slowing down. Is it possible not returning to school during this deadly pandemic will not, in fact, be the end all for healthy children but a new way to experience life while growing emotional intelligence?

There is no “right way” to do anything. Most often, opinions are not based in fact but rather based on personal beliefs handed down from generation to generation…those beliefs and opinions never questioned. Seems we are running out of choices…perhaps coming together sharing innovative ideas is the solution as opposed to scratching each other’s eyes out like wild animals.

Until next time….

06.27.20
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Do you ever wonder?

I spend a lot of time either agreeing or disagreeing with other humans. There are times when I’m neutral. But often I say in my head…what are they thinking? What are their demons? What happened to them? More like what the HELL happened to them? Thankfully I’m also able to say, how did I get so lucky with friendships? In spite of the the events in my life that I considered negative at the time, how did I get so lucky? I am grateful for the ability to now recognize Peace of Mind?

Laying in bed trying to get a nap in before work, I was focusing on my chakras because I have been feeling out of alignment…or to be honest…I’m tired, have been experiencing some fear and entertaining bitchy thoughts. While laying there I had the image of an older woman with large, lipstick decorated lips. My thoughts went to what would that be like to have well endowed lips. Would I talk differently, would I enunciate words differently? Would I look in the mirror and notice my beautiful lips first…or would I be focused on thin hair or tired eyes? What would it be like to look different? What would it be like to even have a different heritage…say black or asian? Would I be the same person inside..looking in the mirror but seeing a different face?

Of course I would be a different person inside having different life experiences. But, what if we could trade out bodies for a day? Would I understand the difference? Would I be less judgmental? Would I “get it”? Would I be the same after walking in someone else’s pumps?

Until next time…..

02.04.20
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Blogging away the angst

When I initially started Sharing my irritations, hates, repressed anger, loves and thankfulness on this ninasusan.com blog in 2007, it’s purpose was to make connections with other people. It quickly morphed into a safe place to use as my own personal therapy session. I shared my very painful beliefs and words on a public blogging site because I found that I was receiving feedback from perfect strangers who also found themselves in their own personal hell and we related! I also connected with 6 or 7 perfect humans who now ride in the backseat of my car daily…we share, we commiserate, we love and we hold each other up. I have met face to face with a couple of them….the rest of us feel like we’ve also met in person because we just KNOW each other with our souls!

I remember when I started out, I received some flash back from remain nameless because they couldn’t figure out why I didn’t keep my personal business….personal… I heard them…I understood the question…but, quite unlike my usual MO, I continued writing and sharing because I felt I had to get my hate and disconnect from familial mental abuse out or it would kill me. I needed to have a way to communicate everything I was holding inside and I was too afraid to clip the wires on my jaw and actually say out loud what I thought, what I meant…I did not have the guts to back off from those people who had grown accustomed to my people pleasing.

Someone mentioned to me the other day how much they appreciated how authentic my blogs are. The words from her blessed my heart. We all suffer, we all experience mental or physical ailments, we all have grief, we all have irritations and hateful moments. But we all just want to be heard and we all want to be loved. We are what we think. We are the unkind thoughts we think about others. Just Be Kind! Pass it on. Pay it forward!

Namaste

01.06.20
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Kindness

I grew up with a “hurt” mother…she spent 53 years mentally hurting me. After several therapy sessions and a lifetime of turmoil and guilt about how I felt about my mother, someone told me that hurt people hurt others. 4 little words that gave me profound understanding. I worked 30 years as a 911 dispatcher…it’s ironic that the skills I learned to deal with my mother aided me in being a compassionate and caring dispatcher. MOST OF THE TIME. It also fed my cynical nature that people are just shit! Seriously! In spite of frequent verbal abuse, I learned how to take it and be firm but also kind.

These experiences taught me from childhood to retirement that people treat you better when you are kind. Better being an operative word. There are a lot of angry and “hurt” people out there. Many would not define themselves as hurt…they are just tired of perceived shit. So they are angry at everyone else and I’m sure many of them haven’t the slightest idea that they need to go into themselves and find out where it all comes from…all of the pain, years of being slighted, years of never being good enough, perhaps years of physical or mental abuse.

I have found that when I am around “hurt” people, it does no good to repay anger with anger. It is much easier to just remove myself physically and mentally and be kind. I used to think just being kind when being treated badly just caused me to be a doormat for others to wipe their feet on. I realize that is only the case if I get caught up in the mistreatment and allow it to continue. If I walk away AND release the negative emotion I’m feeling, I will not become an angry and cynical being. We can always be kind.

Until next time….