It's Harder to Be Kind Than to Be Clever

I read ear­lier this week that it’s harder to be kind than it is to be clever.

My girl­friend and I were cook­ing din­ner for my par­ents over the week­end. It was sup­posed to be fun, we were try­ing out a cou­ple of new recipes and I wanted to let my mom and dad take it easy as we pre­pared them a meal. But one of the switches on our stoves just wouldn’t turn.

I wanted to use another stove but my dad – ever the fixer-upper – wouldn’t let it go. He forced the switch and gas started hiss­ing out. Then the switch stuck, and we couldn’t turn it back! Gas kept leak­ing into the kitchen as we scram­bled to turn the switch back and cut the gas off, but no luck.

Amidst this rush, I snarled at my dad: “I told you to leave it alone already!”

I really regret­ted that.

We twisted the switch back with a wrench soon after, and on hind­sight there really wasn’t any dan­ger in our well-ventilated kitchen. But rather than hav­ing a good laugh of relief over a prob­lem solved, I’d turned the sit­u­a­tion into an even unhap­pier one, just because I had to insist on hav­ing been clev­erer.

The truth is, I had been the dumb­est one in that room.

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