The UPSide
Or, It's not that hard to be nice
I’m having a meh day.
My weekend was draining, both emotionally and uterally—and no amount of chocolate was enough to make me feel better. I just had to sit with it.
Not surprisingly, I find myself feeling depleted today. I recognize that this is a temporary feeling, as my body—just like everyone else’s—is a miraculous thing that is capable of resilient and magical chemistry.
But still. Today is meh.
I haven’t “accomplished” much.1 I put together a new set of drawers from IKEA,2 and I put away some laundry. And still, the meh hangs over me, fogs my brain, holds me close.
By 2:00 in the afternoon, the meh has officially overstayed its welcome. I dip into my bag of mental-health tricks and pull out an idea: I’m going to get out of the house for a bit.
We’re out of a few grocery-store essentials, so I decide to start there. I’ve also got a couple of packages in my trunk that need to go to UPS, and there’s a library book waiting for me to pick up.
That list feels overwhelming—the meh has zapped my motivation—so I tell myself all I have to do is go to the grocery store.
And, as it often does, after I’m freed from the cozy grip of homebodiness, my sojourn snowballs into more energy and after leaving the grocery store I find myself driving past the entrance to my condo complex, underthinking as much as possible as I make my way to the library. I pick up the book on hold for me and a couple of others from an October-themed “frightful adult fiction” display nearby.
Next thing I know, I’m at the UPS store, packages in hand. It’s just a couple of drop-offs—a bag of Nespresso pods and a return to QVC—but both clerks are busy with customers so I settle at the beginning of the line.
Then, I see it—a dog! A pup with curly black hair is lying on its side behind the help desk. I’m not good with dog breeds, but he looks like he might be a cockapoo.3 He’s wearing a blue denim harness and there’s a red rubber ball lying next to him.
A couple more people walk in. The first is a dark-skinned woman wearing a smart-casual green-printed shirt and matching green pants, carrying several small electronics and what looks to be an empty electrical panel box. Behind her, a heavily pregnant blonde woman in a skin-tight beige dress and platform sandals grabs the door and holds it open so the first woman can focus on her teetering tower of electronics.
They’re smiling as they settle in line behind me. The dog perks up and starts growling a bit, looking from the line to one of the clerks. That clerk finishes with his customer and waves his hand to beckon me forward. He’s young—a high-schooler, most likely—and has natural black curls radiating from atop his tall, thin frame. He jokes that the dog is telling him, “There’s people! There’s people to help!”
At that moment, it strikes me: I always have a pleasant experience at this UPS store. Every single time. The first time I came in, a middle-aged Korean man helped me. I needed a padded envelope to send something, so I grabbed one from their small display. He didn’t charge me for it. “You can pay next time,” he told me.
Another time, I was trying to make an Amazon return and the system wouldn’t let me, and I ended up talking to both clerks at once about how they’d had several instances of customers selecting UPS return when initiating their Amazon return, only to have Amazon “accidentally” set their return to go to the local Whole Foods.4 Those two UPS workers even made a conspiracy theory seem fun.
Yet another time, I commented on the bonafide wall of boxes to go out and the clerk and I chatted about how much business picked up since the pandemic, when everyone started to shop online, and how it hasn’t really let up since.
And today, everyone’s in a good mood. Again. Is this tiny, unassuming UPS store located within some sort of energetic vortex? Some convergence of good juju and solar salutations? Aren’t places where mail is exchanged supposed to register with Satan as Mandatory Entrances to Hell (MEH),5 along with places that license drivers and places that tell you to sit down with 11 other people and judge someone?
And yet, it’s not. It’s not MEH at all.
It’s really easy to carry the meh along with you; to let it color your expressions, your words, your interactions with people. And when the meh really has you, or when it’s escalated to grief or crisis or depression, it’s even easier to let it take over and turn you into a grouch. To let your words sting and your actions burn.
Life is hard. We can only handle so much.
But.
I believe that it’s also easy to be nice; to be kind just for the sake of being kind. Because maybe the person you’re being kind to is also feeling meh. Maybe the person you’re being nice to just lost their favorite person or put their furry family member to sleep earlier that day.
And maybe your kindness will give them a tiny boost, plant a seed of hope, serve as a reminder that the light always, always, always comes back.
Meh’s got nothing on that.
I put this in quotation marks, as accomplishment is relative. To see it as a rigid quantifier is graceless.
Insert immature giggle here.
Whole Foods, of course, also being owned by Amazon…
Holy acronym fortuitousness, Batman!