Kindness

"put on your bravest face"

I really try to treat everyone with kindness and understanding.  I'm not really the most patient person in the world, and I do actually have strong opinions, but I prefer to keep most of that stuff between myself and my journal.  I'll be honest, though:  recently, my capacity to keep on being kind has been severely tested.  You know how in those movies where the hero and the damsel are hanging over the edge of the cliff by a rope, the camera always gives us a tight shot on the rope as it begins to fray and part?  It's like I'm watching my own patience come undone, strand by strand.  First it's a student whose antics have gone from pitiful to annoying; then it's another student who just takes up too much of my time before class is due to start; then it's a meeting that goes twice as long as it needs to; then it's poor Vulcan Baby, who is quite miserable due to teething--and is making the rest of us miserable; then it's the cat yowling for food . . .

 . . . again, the Bilbo Baggins metaphor about butter scraped too thinly on a crust of bread . . .

 . . . but we mustn't give up, must we?