Be excellent to each other.

[00:00:00] You are listening to the Daily Five, an experimental podcast by Aurooba, where I talk about something for five minutes. So let's get to it, shall we?

[00:00:16] Sometime last year when I became a lot more active on social media, I found myself saying the same statement a lot, and that was, "default to kindness, folks". And I liked it so much that I put it in my bio. It's even in my Mastodon bio right now because that is a good reminder for me and for all of us to default to kindness.

[00:00:52] And right before I recorded this episode, I read a post by Andy Bell [00:01:00] about how, you know, when we see people asking for help in forums, Twitter, anywhere in the #WebDev world, sometimes, pretty often actually, you'll see those snarky responses. People make assumptions about the person who is asking the question, and they –

[00:01:25] Whatever assumptions they make, ultimately it leads them to giving the snarky response instead of just answering a question that someone might have asked. And I saw this post on social media and then leading up to reading that, there was also another comment from someone else, a Stuart Robson, and he linked to a post that he had written where he used the

[00:01:55] sentence, "be excellent to each other", which is [00:02:00] from a movie that I have never seen, but it struck me as another statement, another excellent, excellent reminder that we should all keep in mind, you know, be excellent to each other. You don't know where someone is at, and it's just easier, better, kinder, to not make assumptions and just answer the questions or answer whatever is needed right now without that extra snark or meanness, because maybe that person is just learning.

[00:02:39] They might be a little bit behind you. You know, there's no one linear way to learn something or figure something out, and you don't know which direction someone is coming from when they ask you a question. So don't assume things. Treat people with kindness, always default to kindness, [00:03:00] default to kindness, not only for other people, but also for yourself.

[00:03:05] And if you find yourself doing something unintentionally that appears unkind? Well, now you have noticed it, so do the kind thing. Figure out what the kind thing is in that situation, and then do that because that is being excellent to one another. And I think life is just better when we are kind and excellent to each other and to ourselves.

[00:03:35] I think it's much more difficult to be kind to yourself if you cannot find it in you to be kind to others. So be kind to others. Be kind to yourself, I feel like I'm an elementary school teacher right now, but I think it's worth remembering and reminding each other about because in this crazy world, [00:04:00] especially the digital world, where we are sitting behind a screen and we can't always see the truth of how someone meant to say something?

[00:04:12] It is just a safer bet, a better bet, to not assume the worst and default to kindness, to be excellent to each other. Am I being repetitive? I feel a little repetitive, but I think that it's worth just reinforcing that idea because I think it's just so, so important that we all default to kindness and that we all are excellent to each other.

[00:04:45] Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.