Ms. Sarcasm, 1968?

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

Ms. Sarcasm, 1968, yours truly, was anointed by a considerable number of my high school classmates. (OMG, you do not want to see that yearbook!) However, I’ve now morphed into (ready?) little Ms. Mary Sunshine, 2023. Bet you’re wondering what that story is…

In high school, most of us had a modus operandi for getting attention. I was not among the classically attractive girls invited and admitted to the popular social clubs. Nope. Nor one of the girls who, once a year,  received a corsage from a secret admirer. (I was one of the girls looking on enviously.) BUT, I was a debating and forensics whiz. (Oh, thank god for that!) Words were my modus operandi for getting attention. Sharply sarcastic and funny words.  Yay, me! (Or so I thought at the time.)

Like many a teenager, I was a sponge for attention. Since sarcasm was the equivalent of waving “I’m here, I’m here,” cutting words were a specialty. Any discomfort, embarrassment, or pain to those who were the butt of my barbed (but very funny) comments, was irrelevant. Period. I had MY spotlight. (This, thank heavens, is why we’re only young once. A grace to other people.)

When I hit my college years (oh, yeah, those 60’s and 70’s), pressing questions like “Who am I, really?” joined the fray along with all the other indulgences of that particular era.  My super-abundance of sarcasm was soon directed toward the disdained ‘establishment.’ Oh, so alive and caustic of wit. (Again, yay me!)

Aliveness notwithstanding, the question “Who am I, really?” kept floating up, whispering behind all my highly charged and attention-getting words. And that darn question wouldn’t go away. Would-not-go-away. It began to dawn on me that my attention-seeking sarcasm was, perhaps, not the best message I could send in a world I hoped to nurture.

But getting real, what more beneficial messages would actually make a difference in our challenged world? (Not asking much, am I?) And how could I continue garnering some small light of attention, even bereft of my old standby, sarcasm? Still human, after all these years…

The word flourishing served as a password to greater uplift in messaging. How can I support the flourishing of others in the world?  “Revolution…happens when society adopts new behaviors.” Like harnessing that reflexive ‘ol snarkiness and deciding what behaviors I’d like to share in its stead. And…

…the long-awaited answer to that query? You ready? Kindness... Feeling a bit of a letdown after reading that exceedingly pedestrian response? Nothing radical, just….rampant kindness. What had I to lose by making a practice of consistently behaving kindly toward others? (With snark in abeyance, of course.) Would my kindness contribute to the general flourishing of others, no matter what their belief systems might be? That’s a no-brainer. I’m modeling the heck out of kindness and trusting that it’s contagious from one person to the next person, to the next. From the bottom up, folks, from the bottom up.

If you should bump into me at the grocery store, I’m the one smiling and pleasantly nodding at all the other customers; always, always, thanking the cashier; sharing compliments with employees, almost like discrete chocolate valentines, as I make my way out; and keeping my verbal side of the street clean. And, yes, admittedly, there is a personal high that accrues from spreading kindness. (My foot still has a place in that desired human spotlight. What a relief!)

Sarcasm, my long-time modus operandi, needed serious taming. (Any dispute there?) The focus, now, is laughing at myself. Nothing wrong with that (is there?) But hey, as much as humanly possible, I’m still trying to leave self-directed caustic words in abeyance, or even better, at the North Pole.

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