Be kind to yourself - and others
I'm kneeling by my dishwasher, pointing at a note I've stuck to the door. "Empty the Dishwasher!" it says, with "contribute" scrawled underneath. Neat writing, but scribbled in frustration…
And I'm laughing at myself. Because here I am, someone who spends their days helping leaders think about difficult conversations, perspective-taking, and how to navigate complexity with other human beings. And yet, when faced with the daily reality of a full dishwasher, I've gone straight to passive-aggressive post-it notes.
The thing is, we've got four adults living in this house now. Not children – adults. My offspring now work full-time jobs with odd hours. My wife and I are learning what it means to have a life together that isn't entirely defined by parenting. It's a weird transition, if I'm honest. Part of me knows I should probably cut them some slack when I come down in the morning to find last night's dishes still sitting there. Another part of me thinks "you are adults, how hard is this?!"
I took the photo because the contradiction made me smile. There I am, professionally helping people think about relationships and understanding different perspectives. And there's my dishwasher note, doing exactly the opposite.
We're all a mishmash of contradictions, aren't we? We're not always our perfect selves. Sometimes we say the wrong thing. Sometimes we do the thing we'd gently counsel others against. Sometimes we stick passive-aggressive notes on kitchen appliances when we know full well a simple conversation would work better.
And you know what? That's probably fine.
The best we can be isn't some impossible standard of consistency where we never slip up, never get frustrated, never default to our less-than-ideal responses. The best we can be is honest about it. Kind to ourselves about it. And kind to others when they do exactly the same thing.
So, my Friday advice to you: be kind to yourself, be kind to others.
If you sometimes fall short of who you want to be, it happens. We can't always be our perfect selves – and trying to be probably just makes us more likely to end up writing notes on the dishwasher.
