I've been talking lately about being courteous and kind to our fellow humans, but what about when you need to be firm and less than friendly? Sometimes real world situations don't allow us to live out our flowery ideals. Without going into details that are private to some people (and too tedious to particularize here), I recently had to kick a guy out of my house. There were no raised voices and the guy was very nice about it, even introducing himself to me and putting out his hand to shake. I refused and instead pointed to the door. Not exactly courteous, right? But here's the deal: this guy deals meth and I don't want him around.

Now the thing I've written in recent posts talks about seeing the good in people and being kind to them. That can be really mushy if taken wrong. In other words, being "kind" might mean in the above situation opening my door to this guy, offering him something to drink, cooking him a tasty meal and maybe helping him break his drug habit.

Sure, but not in my home where my pregnant wife sleeps. Kindness means being kind to yourself and your family too. That's not being selfish--it's setting boundaries. The guy I kicked out had already been asked once before not to come to my home. For him boundaries needed to be laid out very clearly and, unfortunately, unkindly. I felt it was necessary to refuse to shake his hand or offer him the slightest courtesy. Perhaps I am perpetuating his poor self-image (he clearly has one if he is forty years old and a drug dealer) by my actions, but perhaps he will reflect on why he's been turned out. That can be very kind: to show him a mirror as it were so he sees himself for what he is and puts an end to his poisonous behavior. I don't know--it's really up to him.

My point here is kindness comes in all shapes and sizes. Tough love is kindness. A slap in the face can be kindness (there are many stories of Zen masters giving their students a good knock on the noggin to wake up--modern stories, not ancient Chinese tales--I've never seen my teacher slap anyone, but he can lash you with his tongue and the results are very productive, I can tell you). So be courteous when it is time to be courteous. Be firm and harsh when the time is right for that. (And you can be firm without bringing hate or anger into the equation--I don't despise the guy, I just don't want him around my home).

The trick to knowing when to be courteous and when to be firm is to not think so much. For a brief moment, when the guy was in my house, I hemmed and hawed like Hamlet. There were extraneous circumstances that complicated things (can't go into them here). I weighed my options and tried to calculate the right thing to do. Mistake. Most of the time we know the right thing to do--it's obvious, but our thinking muddles clarity. So "feel, don't think" or as Obi-Wan told Luke: "Let go your conscious self and act on instinct." When you stop and look at the situation as it is and you let thinking and emotion float by, you will see there is only one choice before you. Take it and have the courage to act!