Hard Battles

I had posted the following on LinkedIn, thus the focus on work, but thought I might share it here too:

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

I have been reminded of that quote often in the past several days. It has come up in several completely unrelated contexts. Maybe I am just more attuned to hearing it at the moment. (Apparently, there is a bit of argument as to who said it first, which is why I did not attribute it here.)

We are all fighting hard battles, and, though I know it is difficult to believe, not all of those battles are going on at work. There are people every day who were up with a sick child all night or have some financial worry or struggling with mental health issues, who wake up and put on a happy face and come to work to deal with relatively minor issues if only to take their minds off the very heavy battles they left at home.

I am reading When Breath Becomes Air right now and amazed that someone, a doctor, knowing his time left on earth is not being counted in months decides that he is going to go back to work. I wonder what his patients thought, maybe not knowing the courage their surgeon had in even showing up that morning. "Wow! Doc looks awful!"

I especially have a lot of sympathy for those working in customer service or other customer-facing jobs. My wife is a flight attendant, and I know there are many who have to leave a sick child or spouse to leave on a three-day trip and deal with customers who have had their "lives ruined" because their flight was delayed a couple hours and now they are going to be late to the bachelor party.

Some of your coworkers, some of your vendors, the person making your Subway sandwich at lunch -- they left the heavy battles at home today. So be kind to each other.