Be Kind, Always

 *crosspost from Facebook*

I did something the other day that I never do.

After receiving two fraudulent robocalls so far this week claiming to be from the IRS regarding suspension of my SSN - to my work number, no less - I got a third this morning and decided to hit "1" to speak to a representative. I honestly hadn't planned this out. I had no idea what I was going to say or do, I just knew I felt compelled to do something other than hang up.

I got an extremely soft spoken woman with a moderately heavy accent. She sounded so small and timid as she whispered "Social Security Administration, how may I help you?"

I told her my first name. I told her I knew this call was a scam and that I was sure this was probably a recorded line so I understood if she could not respond to me openly. I told her I wasn't going to yell at her and that I didn't think she was a bad person for doing what she did. I told her I hope better opportunities opened up for her this year because she deserves more than this. I have no idea where any of this came from, I just know it came.

There was silence on the other end for a few heartbeats and for a moment I thought for sure she was going to immediately hang up on me. She didn't. I heard her start crying. I said it's okay, I understand. I literally sat on the phone with a woman I've never met, a woman who was calling to swindle me, a woman whose life circumstances I made a seriously wild guess about, and held space for her for about fifteen seconds.

"I wish better for you," I said. She managed to compose herself enough to quietly say "God bless you" before hanging up.

I immediately Googled various phrases to try and get more information about the people who do this for a living. I got basically nothing other than ways to report them, how to stop scam calls, what to do if you get one. Nowhere in any of those how-to articles did it mention "act like a decent human being". It would have been easy for me to assume greed was the main factor here, and I'm sure with many such things it is. But you know what they say about assuming, and somehow I don't think my "wild guess" was all that wild.

I don't think I'm special. I'm not a saint, I'm not unique, I'm no reincarnation of Mother Teresa. I am just tired of the unkindness and entitlement that seems to be so pervasive in our world these days. So, so tired of it.

If you have a roof over your head, can put food on your table and have enough left over to put a little bit in the bank, you're doing pretty damn well. Be grateful. Be kind. Be generous with others, even those who try to wrong you. You have no idea what they might be going through and chances are you never will.

Addendum: since I posted this on Facebook I got a TON of feedback both public and private. Much of it was positive but there were a few who implied I might be being naïve to assume I hadn't been had by a very good actor. There were also those who pointed out that scammers like this quite literally ruin the lives of many people every year, especially vulnerable senior citizens who don't always have ease of access to information regarding the types of scams out there. Their point was that even if scammers are in trying places themselves, what they are doing is still wrong and they aren't the ones who deserve our empathy.

I disagree. When we as a society start to decide who deserves empathy and who does not we move dangerously into categorizing people as "worthy" versus "unworthy". Then the question comes down to what they are unworthy of. Those that are "unworthy" become "the other", and we all know what happens when you start to group people as "other". Generally speaking, nothing good.

So I'll take the risk that I was "had" by, as one person put it, "a very good actor with alligator tears" (I think he might have meant crocodile, but I digress...) I lost nothing by being kind. We are so removed as a society from the idea that what we do might QUITE LITERALLY save someone's life. Maybe not right that moment, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next week, but what you or I do might very well be the catalyst for someone to decide that they DO deserve better and start to make the changes they need to make in their lives to get there. That, my friends, is potent, powerful stuff, and I intend to spread it as far as I can.