Notice the Kindness (Transcription)
[audio:https://www.thementalhealthgym.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Notice-the-Kindnesses.mp3|titles=Notice the Kindness|artists=Dr. Ron Kaiser]Hi this is Dr Ron Kaiser with your audio podcast for November 2012 from The Mental Health Gym. Those of you follow these podcasts with some regularity undoubtedly are aware of the fact that this is being broadcast really quite late in the month. Those of you who are members of Mental Health Gym and read my latest newsletter are aware of the fact that I was personally, my family was personally hit pretty hard by hurricane Sandy.
Not as hard as people who live on the coast of New Jersey or New York but we did lose power for six days, we did experience a power surge once power was restored that knocked out or refrigerator and we subsequently also lost the use of our furnace with the fan motor wet, but enough of my troubles, I’m just using this explanation to let you know why I’m a little late this month. These things were not real problems compared to what some people experienced in relation to the hurricane but they were inconveniences and put a lot of things kind of on the back burner until I could catch up with getting the house back in shape, dealing with insurance adjustors and so on.
My wife and I are very grateful for the fact that we had an inconvenience but not really a whole lot of misfortune. What we went through however forms the basis for this audio because I am entitling it “Notice the Kindnesses”. One of the things that I became aware of, I guess I was always aware of it but, you know how things are when you’re dealing with day to day living, crisis, situations and so on, you sometimes don’t notice just the normal kinds of things that happen in lie and one of the things that I quickly realized is that a lot of good is going on in the world. There are a lot of little kindnesses that occur and really come to the forefront sometimes when somebody is dealing with a crisis.
So I think that when we had these six difficult days where we had no power, no light, no refrigeration, had to eat out a few times then come back to cold dark house, until we decided to take my son and daughter in laws offer to move in with them for about three days but once we started going out and being among people during this time of crisis we noticed how nice some people can be. We began to appreciate the fact that some people who’re frequent, at the various restaurants that we went to were bringing power strips with them so that they could plug the power strip into an extension into the restaurant and multiple people could recharge their cell phones. Or for those whose work entailed some use of the computer, they could plug-in their laptops.
A really a nice gesture that I hadn’t really thought about but did appreciate it as I had no other way of recharging the cell phone until we got to work. I noticed how competent the people were that serve us. In one restaurant the crowd was pretty large and my wife and I were able to get seated at the bar where we just observed one of the really sharpest and nicest bartender, this was lunch time but she took all the food orders, she took the drink orders for those who were into imbibing earlier than we do and who was very very pleasant, you know in addition to all this despite the fact that it was obviously a harassing time.
We’re appreciative of the neighbor who called us to let us know as soon as the power came on in our house so that we could come over and start to attend to things. We ran into multiple people who offered to do what they could to help us and again this really brought to the forefront the fact that there’s a lot of kindness in the world, there’re a lot of nice people. So it got me to thinking and noticing, once life resumed kind of got itself back to normal, began to notice how many people behave as if they enjoy doing their jobs particularly in service capacities.
About some of those customer service people who really give customer service. Ever had a complaint that you call somebody about and I know that there’re people who don’t satisfy your complains but I’ve had a number of experiences where people had made it better. During the crisis we found that there were many companies, banks, others who offered to delay payment or things of this nature, give us a little extra time if we chose to. Fortunately we didn’t need it but I’m sure that some people did in order to meet bills and find where there cheque books or things of this nature.
And in general we don’t have to wait for crisis to notice these kinds of things. Just, you know, you’re listening to this on the internet, think of how many free things there are on the internet, how many things that people give away of value to increase our knowledge and to help others. So you know this isn’t a real profound kind of audio, it’s not something that’s breaking new ground but I hope that it is a reminder to be able to have each of us notice those kindnesses around us, to be a little quicker to say thank you when something nice is done and to be a little more thoughtful about providing guidance, help, service, advice, whatever to friends and neighbors who may be in need at any particular time.
If you begin to notice the kindnesses around you, I think it’s gonna rub off and it’s gonna be hard to not perform some of those kindnesses yourself. This has been Dr Ron Kaiser with the belated podcast for November 2012 from The Mental Health Gym. As always I’d be happy to hear you responses, thoughts and examples of kindnesses that you’ve experienced from others as you go through the normal course of your daily life. Barring any major natural disasters or other kinds of issues we should be back on schedule in December.
For those of you who are in countries where we celebrate thanksgiving I hope you had a very enjoyable thanks giving, we certainly did. My son from Los Angeles came in to join the rest of the family and this was our first thanksgiving together as a family with children and grandchildren since I believe, I don’t know, but it had to have been four or five years. Anyway this is a start at holiday season. This month’s blog points out some strategies with dealing with the holiday season so let’s go into it in a positive and kind way and we’ll chat again next month.