There is power in kindness. It is incorruptible and fierce. The world couldn’t be the way it is without the effervescent energy. I use this force every day, with everything I have. I keep the door open to lift the task from the person coming in. I give a smile to everyone because a smile on a bad day can make it a good one. Even these simple gestures that take no effort are wrapped in kindness.

A quote from Mahatma Gandhi says, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” I wish to see a world emboldened to show more than scowls and hateful worlds. I wish to see a society civilized enough to recognize differences and not hate them. My country has been coddled too long. Children, teens, and even adults have been allowed to run amok. No one has taught them that a joke should not be at the dispense of another person or group of people. No one has taught them that the words racist, homophobe, and even xenophobe are facts, not insults.

I am forced to listen to the most ignorant and disrespectful things come out of my classmates’ mouths and feel stuck in my own anger because they know no better. I must stay glued to my seat with my mouth shut less I be taken as someone prone to overreaction and branded with ridicule. All I ask is that people think before they let whatever comes to their minds slip between their teeth. This isn’t a case of political correctness, it’s just a case of being polite. I don’t see why this presidential election had to focus on speech that had a high cost. Compassion and empathy flying out the window as people let their thoughts know.

Maybe I should be grateful for the 2016 election. People who let these thoughts of race, intelligence, gender, or even sexuality build their worth of others would only fester and eventually explode. There may have been yet another shooting mentioned on the news. Or yet another face that screams their aversions of people based only on a characteristic that never hurt anyone. Maybe I should look past the fact that the person sitting in a high office of power is someone I dislike, and acknowledge the good and the bad.

I had to learn the hard way that nobody is perfect. My peers and I were raised by Generation X. Their ideals colored our childhood but don’t often reflect the times. I had a great-grandmother who was born in 1924 and raised her children to change with the times, who had children, who had me.  I believe in new things every day because I am open to the kindness around me. I listen, I contemplate, I offer up my own thoughts.  Amicability is the spirit of a nation of immigrants, no matter what many may think. My country was built on the backs of slaves. That is a history I have to burden. But that doesn’t mean my country is bad. It has a past like every country before and after it. There is something about the capability to reform, that friendlessness and kindness hold. We can embrace all of our negatives and morph them into positives with that change, no one ever said this is unattainable-just hard.  Amicability is the future if we ever wish to see this happen.