In the first responder and military world much importance is rightfully placed on toughness, grit, strength and endurance. Without these things, our community stands little chance when we come upon the darkness that lurks just outside our civilized fences. What about during all the time that passes when we aren’t confronting the darkness? How are we conducting ourselves during that time? I would submit to you that in the law enforcement world, the one with which I am most familiar, and one that is quit closely knit…we eat each other alive for sport.
There are elements of the professions who worry that kindness may be interpreted as weakness by darkness and its allies. Some of those same folks may say that writing something like this signifies that I’m getting old and soft. I’ll concede that. I’ll also concede that those same people might think Christ himself weak and call him out as such. In other words, I largely discount what they have to say and as long as we don’t compromise our safety standards and tactics, I really couldn’t care less what the critics have to say.
With that out of the way, let lay out a few reasons for people in our professions (or anyone for that matter) not to forget to extend the hand of kindness whenever possible. There are practical reasons, life altering reasons and the deep meaning of the acts of kindness for you and the people whom you touch.
The practical reasons are frankly going to be most compelling for some of my younger readers and they are also the very reasons that eluded the younger me. I was, however not a cruel person, but just so focused on safety and tactics in combination with arriving in the profession during a time when people just didn’t talk about this kind of thing that this stuff never occurred to me. But, the fact is that kindness and respect in the law enforcement world can avoid force applications. There are three types of people who law enforcement officers deal with. This is a universal truth…yes people, maybe people and no people. NO people will not do what you want or need them to no matter what. Yes people will under all circumstances because you simply ask. Maybe people however…they have to be convinced. They will often resist. But with kindness and respect, this can be avoided. Which means so can unpleasantness, skinned knees, sprained ankles and so on. As well as the crowds, videos and potential complaints. I spent a fair portion of my career working narcotics and dealing with informants as well as teaching others to utilize informants. Guess what? Cultivating informants works better if law enforcement treats the potential informant with kindness and respect rather than the reverse. Even if they aren’t going to be an informant, but you just want information (post Miranda or otherwise) being an asshole is a certain way to make sure that no one talks to you. Like, ever.
Practical matters can have direct bearing on your career too. Extending the hand of kindness often requires little of us at the time and means a great deal to the person whom you extended the hand to. As a result, It will likely be remembered by them long after you have forgotten the incident. I experienced something on the giving side very early in my career. When I finished the academy, my graduating class that was hired by my agency was joined by a pre-certified officer from another agency. This officer came with experience and joined us during our “In House” training. A major milestone for us was firearms qualification as it meant that we would be able to finally come to work in uniform. After we all qualified, we headed back to the police station and upon arriving, learned that our pre-cert. classmate had failed to qualify and therefore could not carry their revolver (yes that’s what we carried back then). I suggested that If one of us couldn’t then the whole class shouldn’t until our classmate got remediated and qualified (which happened a short time later). Everyone agreed and I promptly forgot about it. That is…until twenty something years later when I was working for this person and they reminded me of the incident and how much it had meant to them.
As the previous example may have shown to a small degree, extending your hand of kindness can be memorable and even life changing for those to whom you extend it. You may also find yourself looking across the desk of your boss hearing about how you treated them years ago. It certainly was good to hear that they recalled that story instead of one of the many times I struggled. It’s true and I’ve learned it many times over, we never really know what is going on in other people’s lives. Consequently, a small act of kindness may not only be remembered for a whole career, but be life changing.
Before I retired, I had a young officer on my shift on patrol who was…well, struggling. He had rotten luck and was terribly nervous. Doubly so about coming to my shift. Many things had not gone well for him, but I was confident he was going to be fine and counseled him to that effect. One day he was dispatched to a crash which I rolled up on before he arrived. I began to gather information and get things going when he arrived a short time later. He parked and met with me and as I was telling him what I had discovered so far, I looked up and said “HOLY SHIT!” because his patrol car was literally driving its self away from the scene. He had not gotten it all the way into park. To our horror, the car cruised along the road a while, left the road and thankfully was apprehended by a large stand of kudzu with zero damage. He was beside himself and thought it was going to be his last day. I calmed him down, laughed with him a little, called his sergeant and got him back working on the crash. No damage…no crash…no discipline…no big deal. Years later after attending an FTO school, he wrote his major (a former trainee of mine) an email outlining the incident and what an impact it had on him and his career because of the way I handled it. She forwarded the email to me. I (again) had long since forgotten the incident (minor to me) but I was moved to see where it took him. He will be a great FTO.
As a very senior, very tired police lieutenant, I was on my way home from work one day and nearly there when I rolled up on a nasty crash that had occurred seconds before my arrival. The not-at-fault-vehicle was overturned in the roadway in my path and some good hearted do gooders were attempted to drag the occupant out of the vehicle through broken glass. Shoeing them away and stabilizing her neck, I called for the appropriate resources, checked her out and told her she was going to be ok. I held her hand as she was terrified, told her I would call her husband and took down his number. When fire and EMS arrived, I helped put on the C collar, crawled out and told the police officer who pulled up what happened. I then called her husband, filled him in and went home. Just another day. Just another incident that faded into the thousands of others over a career. Except it wasn’t. When I retired a couple of years later, the couple found out about it and came to my retirement. They were so moved that the husband spoke at my retirement. What was just another day to me, had a profound impact on two other human beings. We can never know what is happening with anyone else or how impactful our kindness and respect will be.
Finally, kindness (altruism) has direct health and wellness benefits for us. Studies have repeatedly shown that treating others in this fashion and being kind to our fellow human beings lowers blood pressure, releases endorphins, tends to extend life expectancy, makes you feel more grateful for what you have and can distract you from your own problems. These are of course broad summaries of in depth studies but, nonetheless, point out that on top of the practical reasons to be kind, the life changing implications of kindness that there are real, compelling, health related reasons to extend a hand to your fellow man.
Our world has gone mad. Not a day goes by when my mailbox isn’t filled with hate filled political fliers. The TV is loaded with fear inducing programming and advertising. Everyone is screaming at everyone. People have simply forgotten that we all have more in common with each other than we do things that separate us. We may all have also forgotten the power in kindness. Be the eye of the storm. Extend a hand when you don’t need to. Give freely. Be the change we all need. Mindfully seek opportunities to do these things.
Consider Luke 6:35
If you like what you read here, please consider sharing across your social media platforms and subscribing. Subscribing can be accomplished by entering your email in the WordPress icon found on the home page, or contacting me and I’ll take care of it for you. Once subscribed, you’ll get an email prompt indicating that a new blog has dropped. I am trying to increase the number of subscribers so that I may reach those in our community who want/need to see this content.
Many thanks to those of you already subscribed and those of you who have shared across social media.
On Beyond Blue 