I have spent a lot of time this week talking to people who are unhappy in some way about their state of affairs. Work, life, politics all figure and in many cases the solution is outside of their immediate control.
It’s a reminder that we rarely know exactly what is happening in someone’s life – sometimes people who seem extremely happy are hiding a deep sadness, or the life and soul of the party goes home to a lonely life.
So this week I need to give myself a mental shake and remember to be kind, to everyone, even – or maybe especially – when it’s hard.
There’s a quote by Mark Twain that I might just put on my wall at work to keep me focussed:
The challenge this month was to write about family in a way that dealt with resentment, or a lack of connection, or some unresolved issue. But that left me in a quandary, as I don’t post specifics about my family as a rule; I don’t want to invade their privacy in a blog which is essentially about my own experiences of a writing life.
So I took a wider view of family; a world-wide one, in fact – because we are all related, one way or another.
We are all human.
And we all have things we’d like to see in an ideal world.
For me, there’s a point that seems to keep reappearing at the moment. Not just in my real life either, but in newspaper reports such as the one about Ellen Page’s speech at the Time to Thrive conference. Ellen Page summed up the point beautifully:
‘this world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another.’
That doesn’t sound too hard, does it? ‘Be less horrible’ is hardly ambitious.
We all suffer from the unkind, unfair scrutiny of others to a greater or lesser extent – for those of us in ‘safe’ countries, those of us lucky enough to have the support of family and friends, it can sometimes feel unbearable.
How much more so for people in countries where it is illegal to be the person you were born? Or where you don’t know if you will survive the bombs dropping on your city, or where you are unsafe to travel alone because you are a woman.
There are many things in this world that cause difficulties for people, but the only one we can all take responsibility for is ourselves.
So I hope for one thing today: that my family, my vast 7 billion and rising family, is kinder to each other.
And if you’re in any doubt about our ability to do just that, take a look at this video released by a Norwegian charity:
Becoming a writer 