“Love is more than a rush of feeling that happens to us if we are lucky. Love is sweet labor. Fierce. Bloody. Imperfect. A choice we make over and over again.” -Valarie Kaur
When we see an atrocious, snarky e-mail, our gut response is to respond diametrically with hate. When we find women excluding us or disparaging us for our diet regime to fashion choices, of men exhibiting professional aggression, we bottle things up, or blow up. This is natural, and codified in the croc-brain limbic response of our amygdala is not the best means of dealing.
It took awhile for me to come to the point of where I am today, of two very long years out of college, where the halycon days of research and intellectual discourse were mediated. As I forayed into social media and discourse forums, to the common day professional world of finance, this culture and hatred was normalized. It is easier to normalize violence than to extrapolate it, as within societies, it is a means of preservation to not encounter attacks head-on. It is safer, to go with the crowd.
However, in today’s age, culture is what sets a company apart, and what enables them as a leader for new generations to come. In a time where hate is normalized, revolutionary love, extended to those that hate us is key. This doesn’t mean that we should accept cruel or unusual sentiments. It means speaking with voice of confidence and honesty to indicate the behavior is unwarranted, unprofessional, and unkind.
Kindness can be in the form not only in others, but towards ourselves as we value ourselves to move on, form new friendships with those that value us more. In an era where hate is the answer and normalized on the extremes of radical liberals or conservatives, where America is divided if one does not conform to a set dogma of ideologies as one has a conscious brain, it is kind to be the bridge that knits the very fabric of both disparate worlds, together.
xo,
K.S. Osone 💋