We should all bring summer tolerance and joy into the fall. It’s the end of summer, a time where we all breathe a little easier and life seems balanced. After the summer season, more than the leaves change! When the kids go back to school in your community, the traffic builds up, commitments increase both at home and at work and even companies go into a back-to-reality mode.
Grace and Compassion
I’m sitting at Panera, writing, and heard a man say to his wife “you need to be more productive because you have no more kids in the house.” I want to punch him. It’s the end of summer and he resents her for watching their kids and now that they are in school she should snap to it? He used the most passive aggressive tone with her. She’s ignoring him. THIS is what I’m talking about! Where is the grace and compassion that we should all have for each other?
Judgment
I think what bothers me most about that situation was resentment and judgment. The judgment for what mom is doing at home now that her days are bit more tolerable. In the workplace there’s judgment for the working mom who needs to take her kid to the doctor because the school won’t let him start without an immunization. The judgment for the father who is late for work because, well, school traffic, the stopped school bus and everything that could go wrong DID go wrong. Worst of all? The end of summer should not become an excuse to go into a frenzy.
Summer Chill Pills
We need to all keep our summer chill pills in our pockets even though we are at the end of the season. In today’s world it would be so much better if we all realized that we are all in this together. We all feel the chaos and the subtle shift in the air. Tolerance would be a wonderful addition to our days. Most of us are doing our very best, so remember this when you are tempted to look at someone and judge them by their bad day or their transition into the new year.
Let the school year begin! Good luck to you all and don’t forget to take a moment and go back to summer.
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