The Daily Tar Heel
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The Daily Tar Heel

Before I get on with column, have we all seen the movie “Get Out”?

Definitely go watch that, and then please join me as I continue not trusting white people for at least 30 more years. OK, now on to the important issues.

I, and I am sure many of you, have been troubled by the recent acts of hatred in the world — and they are not just coming from the North Carolina General Assembly.

Whether it is the recent wave of bomb threats targeting Jewish community centers and schools or the man accused of trying to emulate the attack on the Charleston church, we all should be troubled by such events.

We face many problems in our state, country, society and world, but do not fret because I, Jesus Armando Gonzalez-Ventura, have the solution.

You guys ready for this one?

It took me years in the lab — and at least 21 years of deep philosophical thinking — to come up with this.

Ready?

There is not much to it, but it is going to be more difficult in practice than in theory. OK, here we go. The solution is to be nice to people — just be nice. Not much to it.

The book of books gives us what is referred to as The Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31 NIV, see also Matthew 7:12). We were taught this growing up (exceptions include extremists in NCGA), but somehow it loses its strength as we age.

Treat people the way you want to be treated, and you will be ahead of the game in terms of sanity and getting along with folks. Often the toughest person to treat kindly is not your friend, parent or even your annoying ass sister; it is usually yourself.

Consider this: When your friend performs worse than expected on an assignment or makes a mistake ­­— how do you console them? If you are anything like me, you become their cheerleader and root for them to get back up and come back better.

Now, how do you speak to yourself after making a mistake or not performing up to standard? I suspect, if you are anything like me, you do not react quite the same way as you would with your friend.

At the beginning and end of the day, we are all we have. We live in our heads most of the time, and that is something that we just cannot get away from. Moral of the story is: Be kind to yourself, the world is gross enough without you being gross to yourself.

In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

And this really is true — we never know how soon it will be too late. We are on this planet for less than a moment; no one cares about anything as much as you convince yourself they do. You will always be way more valuable than your organic chemistry grade (a little projecting here, but ya feel me?)

Live tu vida — be happy, honest and kind with yourself.

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