What I Will and Won't Do

Dear fellow humans,

I will not add to your suffering today.

I will not be the last straw, the final weight that breaks and buries you in despair.

I will not take pleasure in your moments of weakness, your own self-reckoning that happens to catch my eye.

I will not laugh at your expense, nor ridicule you for fumbles made in front of others.

I will not assume that what makes me happy is what you also need, and hand that over blindly without asking. Or listening.

I will not pluck threads of your life out of a context shaped by your experiences and then make final pronouncements about your character, your intentions, the shape of your soul.

I will not be the reason you give up on humanity, paint us all with the broad thick brush of selfish intolerance until it’s only matter of time that you join in, resigned to a dismal collective fate.

I will not decide that you are simply a failed version of me.

I will not abandon you when you aren’t the person you’re striving to be.

I will give you the expansive embrace of grace in the tiny slivers of your life that mingle with mine for mere seconds while we’re in line at the bank or waiting in traffic. In any healthcare setting, I will presume you have much on your mind and perhaps are not at your best in that moment.

I will look for all the ways you’re trying your hardest, and notice where it’s working.

I will give you privacy, the benefit of the doubt, and presume good intention rather than draw conclusions you can do nothing about.

I will allow your story to be unfinished, and not try to write the next chapter or the ending.

I will look beneath your frustration and anger, in case grief is lingering there, trying to find its way out into the fresher air of healing.

I will give you room to figure things out, even if you struggle and thrash around a bit, instead of stepping in because your moment of growth is making me uncomfortable.

I will listen even after you’ve stopped talking.

I will let all of you be bigger than the fleeting or miniscule bits that come into my line of sight.

I will want you to have what you need most and be happy for you when it arrives.

I won’t give up on you. Or me. Or all of us.

I promise.