Lately, the world is not okay. Atau kalau misalnya memang mau jadi golongan yang melihat gelas itu setengah kosong, the world has not been okay for quite a while.
Capek nggak sih, kalo tiap kali mengakses medsos, yang muncul adalah berita-berita yang bikin kita mikir, what the heck is wrong with people? Isinya berita tentang ketidakadilan dunia, orang berantem (mulai dari twitwar nggak penting antar sesama the so-called influencers sampe berbagai peraturan dan kebijakan yang nggak jelas maksudnya apa), people judging each other, capitalism taking over the world from the poor, dan segala macem?
Saya kadang-kadang kalo lagi baca berita, terutama yang berkaitan dengan perundungan dan diskriminasi, selalu keinget sebaris lirik dari lagunya Macklemore: “A world so hateful, Some would rather die than be who they are.”
And I can’t help to think that we are indeed living in a world so hateful. (Probably it’s the INFJ side of me that makes me so contemplative about the world more often than I would like to be). In other words, sometime it’s just so difficuly to still have some faith in humanity.
Tapi lalu, saya suka keinget apa yang pernah diceritain oleh salah satu instructor saya di suatu short course yang saya ambil waktu sekolah dulu. Chelsy, si instructor saya itu cerita, bahwa pernah suatu hari dia ngerasa so pessimistic about the world, since all the news was only about how people were so corrupted and the world was just so screwed up. Kemudian dia cerita ke temennya soal ini. Dan jawaban temennya gini.
“Do you know why there are news about bad things and bad people? Because it’s not the norms. Because people realize that it’s not the way we want it to be.”
Kata Chelsy, “it makes me realize that even with all the bad things happening around us, people know that it’s not good. People know that it’s not the way it’s supposed to be. People still want goodness and kindness.’
I still think about this a lot, even years after she talked about that in class.
And I think it’s true. Kalau kita merasa bahwa banyak yang salah di sekitar kita, artinya kita masih punya sense buat ngebedain mana yang salah dan mana yang benar.
We still long for kindness.
And what exactly stop us from being kind to other people? Just because we feel like so many people are being unkind in this world, why should it be the reason for us to stop being kind?
Dan sepertinya, bahkan dengan berbagai keterbatasan yang ada di kita, we can still be kind. No, the world is not going to be okay in the blink of an eye just because people decide to go small kind gestures. But at least it can become a slightly better place for some people.
The world is not okay right now. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t be kind to other people. Just like this quote:
In a world where you can be anything, be kind.
Jennifer Dukes Lee
