Creative Civility, Compassion & Communication

Today is officially set aside to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his message; his dream made all the more urgent with recent events in Tuscon which had President Obama pleading for more civility and care in our relations with each other.

This requires we draw upon personal resources of kindness, tolerance and goodwill that psychologists are expressing concern our current youth lack. Rather, according to reports, they have grown into a generation of self absorbed narcissists who feel entitled to meet their needs before (or without) considering the common good.

From my perspective as an educator, I recognize that many behaviors stem from role models. This spreads responsibility to parents, teachers and other adults to demonstrate appropriate behavior. I know from my work with companies that many adults feel the humanity squeezed out of them by relentless demands at work, coupled with pressures from mounting debt and persistent uncertainty. By their own admission, they are more prone to be short tempered out of sheer exhaustion and time pressure.

As for youth, while I’m privileged to know many who are talented, compassionate and articulate, there are probably more who have resorted to communicating with each other via their electronic devices, even when sitting near each other. Their hundreds of texts back and forth give the illusion of connection, but are very often devoid of any real content. Those youth seem to have less confidence in direct discussion, especially on issues of substance. So in a way they are not even addressing each other as people. Talk about de-humanization! No wonder we have issues of lack in tolerance, kindness and compassion.

How can we overcome this? I suspect that just as we moved from High Touch to High Tech and back again to High Touch Tech with the advent of social media, the next step will be more interaction, with a demand for contributions of substance. Kind of moving from 2-D to 3-D experiences. The Web will become more of a showcase for each person’s unique talent and knowledge added to collective contributions in order to design collaborative solutions to wider issues.

Meanwhile, we can each start by treating ourselves a bit kinder, whether by a bit of pampering or taking time out to exhale and ‘smell the roses’. Then reach out and extend simple kindnesses to others around us, and then pay it forward out in the wider world.

Not only will we begin to re-humanize our society on a level of heart, but people will flourish in the creative civility of shared ideas. And this expression of the Dream Realized would probably make Dr. King very happy.