V is for viper

Ever know someone like that? Viper tongue and not afraid to use it. Supremely confident of their right to cut someone down to size with the appropriately vicious comment. Never do they imagine that they're busy removing a mote from their victim's eye while ignoring the huge pole in theirs. It takes a special kind of smallness to speak without kindness. To lay waste just because you can. It took me so many years to realize that being kind was the true power. Any pig can be snarky and smug. Any lout can be loud and mean.

But to be kind ... to try to look beyond a person's faults and mistakes and find their good qualities ... to be more than lip service to the idea of compassion ... that's hard. That's what we should strive for. It's not as much fun, it's not as smart, it's not smug, it's not as ego boosting ... but it's how we humans could be if we were willing to work on it. If we were willing to bend.

If kindness wasn't such a bad taste on our viper lips.

(This post is part of the 2013 Blogging From A to Z April Challenge. Learn more about the Challenge HERE.)