Can We Still Be Kind on A Hard Day? The Taxi Test

Can We Still Be Kind on A Hard Day? The Taxi Test

Imagine you are in a shared taxi many of us know too well. It is hot. Someone needs to get out, someone else is trying to get in, and there is a discussion about whether the remaining space is, in fact, a seat. You are already tired.

The person beside you takes a little longer than everyone would like to find their fare. You do not know what their morning has been like. They do not know about yours. For a few minutes, you are simply two people trying to get somewhere without the journey taking everything you have left.

This is what I mean by the taxi test. Can we make a little room for somebody when we know very little about them? It is an ordinary question. It gets harder when we are uncomfortable, late, and quite certain that our own day has already asked enough of us.

I will be honest with you. On so many occasions, I have failed this test. I am kind but how often am I kind when I am irritable or anxious? Or when I have had a long day, spending every minute fighting off this monster called depression while trying to adult at the same time?

In those moments, a few things help ground me. They remind me of the kindness I have received and what it meant to me when I had very little left to give. Here is my not-so-little list of things I try to remember.

1) You do not need to understand everything to be kind

When I think about the people who cared for me during some of my hardest days, I remember practical things. In Dear Us, I write about my cousin offering to help with my hair and picking up my laundry. I remember being given a book to keep me company.

Those things mattered on days when even explaining what I needed was difficult.

I also write about going out to meet a friend and becoming overwhelmed. My brother came to get me. When we reached home, he told me he was proud that I had tried to go out on my own. I had not managed the afternoon I had hoped for. He noticed the effort anyway.

He could have spent the journey explaining how inconvenient the whole thing had been. Instead, I arrived home with one less thing to feel ashamed of.

These people did not know the full extent of what I was dealing with. They did not have to in order to offer kindness. They responded to what they could see and helped with what they could.

2) Try and make the offer small enough to answer

There is a lot of kindness in wanting to help. Sometimes, though, we hand the person who is struggling the job of organising all that kindness.

“Tell me if you need anything.”

Anything is a very large category when you are having trouble getting through the next hour.

An offer can be simpler. “Would company help while you make that call?” “Can I bring you something to eat?” “Would you like me to come with you, or would you prefer some space?”

Asking gives the other person a say. It also means being prepared for an answer different from the one we hope for. Food is one of the ways I like to care for people. Anyone who has read the chapter about Tracy knows I can get a little carried away with a meal. But even a lovingly prepared meal may not be what somebody wants that day.

I am allowed to offer it. They are allowed to decline it. The kindness should survive that exchange.

And when we offer to do something, it helps to be honest about what we can manage. A short call we actually make is easier to rely on than an enormous promise made in a moment of concern.

3) You may never know the whole story

Everyday kindness does not require access to somebody’s private life. The person taking longer to answer a message does not owe us a medical history before we can speak gently.

A stranger in a taxi does not have to prove that their day is worse than ours.

The experiences I share in Dear Us remind me that small kindnesses did not replace the professional care I needed, but it helped me live through the ordinary hours.

They were still meals to eat, journeys to make, and clothes to wash. I still wanted company. I still wanted to laugh about something that had nothing to do with being unwell.

Kindness helps lift the everyday burdens that medicine alone cannot carry for us. It is the light while we are still in the tunnel. I may never know what my neighbour is going through but I do know they are human. And to be human is to keep finding our way through something that we are dealing with.

So let us keep being about the business of making what others are carrying a little lighter, whenever we can. That is what the taxi test looks like. In a moment when I could add to somebody’s load, can I make the moment a little easier instead?

We may be at different stops, but we can still be decent company for part of the journey.