Maybe you’re the religious type. Maybe you’re not.
Either way, you should consider accepting a special commission: becoming an evangelist . . . for faith in humanity.
It is a faith preached not with words, but with deeds.
Every time as a restaurant customer you don’t respond to a delay in getting your food by yelling at your server, but by saying, “Hey, no worries, I can see you’re short-staffed.” Every time as a restaurant manager you preemptively say, “I’m sorry about this wait; I’ve comped your dessert.”
Every time as an employee you give your boss two weeks notice before quitting, even though you don’t have to. Every time as a boss you show the kind of appreciation to your workers that makes it hard to quit.
Every time as a listener you don’t use someone’s differing opinion as a reason to dismiss them entirely; every time as a speaker you acknowledge, “Actually, I was wrong about that.”
Every time you do the right thing, even when the person on the other side of the equation doesn’t, simply because it’s the right thing — you sow the seeds of this faith.
Sometimes these seeds fall on rocky ground, are unappreciated, and fail to take root.
Very often, however, they bear a vitally needed fruit, one which buoys people’s optimism for the future, shores up their determination to continue on this sometimes frustrating sojourn, offers a salve to a recurrent wish to be airlifted off what can seem like such a dumb, dumb planet.
The word evangelist comes from the Greek for “bringer of good news.” Would that we’d all adopt this calling, labor to restore the belief that there are still decent folks out there — spread the good word that there’s hope for us yet.