I know a young woman whose husband and family I have been thinking about much this week.

While in Beijing I performed a RAK in helping a little old lady (seriously little, seriously old) get her cart onto the curb after crossing a busy intersection.

Traffic in Beijing is fascinating. This is a picture of a fairly quiet street.  Amidst the cars, buses, trucks, scooters, electric carts, bicycle carts, push carts, electric bicycles, bicycles, oh and pedestrians, there is an almost Zen-like flow in the chaos. A flow I would never drive in.  This flow is hard to describe but my observation is that there is indeed a flow. Maybe as long as everyone is driving with the same underlying assumptions that a certain level of reckless abandon and heartfelt belief that others can clearly see how important your travel is relative to their’s and you are merely politely surfing around them as you navigate your way to your Important Destination with your Important Passengers/Cargo/Mission, then somehow it all works. At least most of the time.

This phenomena is curious, worth noting and, I hope you will agree, relevant to RAK. Maybe.  We could get all fancy and talk about all the various sociological, cultural, psychological, historical, political, etc., reasons why this flow amidst the chaos happens, but let’s not. Let’s boil it down.  It generally works even when it is a hot mess because everyone is following the same rules. When you drop a Beijing driver into the U.S., they become a Bad Driver. When you drop a U.S. driver into Beijing, they become a Bad Driver. It’s all about the rules.  When people are not following the same rules, things get messy, car accidents happen (Hint: This just might maybe sort of be a metaphor for human interactions and relationships).

It becomes easy, in fact probably the default, to assume that everyone is following the same rules as we are. Going beyond this, our rules are so deeply ingrained into us, most of us aren’t even aware we have rules. We move through a world our history and experience have created, respond to ghosts from the past (We could say the Ghost of Christmas Past but I feel like we have done enough with Mr. Dickens’ fine holiday classic). It takes a huge amount of effort and practice to step out of the individual streams we are each floundering in (Fuck, should have practiced more in the pool before taking to the open water) and be aware of what comes to us so easily, letting those underlying rules determine how we are.

And it is also really hard to learn other people’s rules, because they don’t know what the rules are themselves. I think to learn their rules you have to do scary things like acknowledge when someone is upset, sad, angry or (and this is killer for me) disappointed in us. We have to find ways to find out why without directly asking why (Hint Relationship Fans: Few things cause more defensiveness than asking someone why they did something), because the person doesn’t know why. We need to ask about feelings and other sticky tar-like substances, listen, be vulnerable, be present with our own scary stuff, go for a swim in their stream which I can assure you has water which is weird and much grosser than the water in your familiar stream.

A small digression: What I would most like to know from the people I love is the answer to the question what are you most afraid of? I don’t mean things that make sense to be afraid of like spiders, heights and clowns. I mean the really scary stuff like fear of being abandoned, a sense that you don’t belong, that you will never be good enough no matter how hard you try, that people only like you because they don’t know just how horrible you are, and fear you are fundamentally unloveable. The stuff that drives the craziest of our rules. I would like to know so I can protect the people I love from these monsters, and, if I can’t protect them, be there with them when these terrors come to them.

Where were we? Oh, yeah… If I were you, at this point point I would ask, “What about you, Mr. Blog, Mr. Random Acts of Kindness? If we all are fucked up in how we live our days and interact with these other Flesh Puppets, what about you? Have you risen above your rules?” To which I say, “Fuck no. Did you not read the part about this taking a lot of effort and practice? What I have I told you in this blog that indicated I was all about embracing effort and practice?” Also go back and read the part about how I have no idea what I am doing as this year unfolds.  I think it may have been in the FAQ, I’m not sure. I can guarantee you that my preferred strategy is to try to placate the upset, sad, angry, disappointed person as soon as possible, without truly knowing why, because obviously that person is having this feeling toward me because of something fundamentally wrong with me and I would rather not have the two of us bring that fundamental wrong into the light of day.  Although I will give myself some credit for knowing that there are rules. I even found my rule book and I am on chapter 4…..well, almost done with chapter 3… Long way to go. Yes, a long way to go.

On the bright side, having committed to a year of Random Acts of Kindness is forcing me to become increasingly aware of my rules and how they affect my interactions. So, see, this is about random acts of kindness.  This rules thing is one of the somethings-I-don’t-have-words-for that is unfolding as I continue to try to be open to what comes from daily RAK.

Back to Beijing traffic! Even if you are not a member of Beijing traffic, you become part of this precarious dance whenever you step off the curb. Crossing the street is not for the timid, nor for the foolish. You must cross with just the right balance of certainty the drivers will stop and awareness the driver may opt to run you over. Personally I think it is a matter of sensing how much the driver is concerned hitting you would dent his car and the driver’s tolerance for paperwork (I think there must be a lot of paperwork to fill out whenever you encounter the Chinese Police, although I am happy to say I have never had an occasion to find out). So in addition to playing the Traffic Game by the same rules, there is also a component of how you move into the world that determines your success or smushed, messy failure. Crap, another metaphor. Sometimes the flexibility and power of language is such a pain in the ass. All right, whatever.

How we approach the frightening task of crossing “the road” has a huge impact on our relationships. Although if chickens can do it, surely we can too. It is all about the awareness you may get squished and still stepping out with confidence and an open heart.  Another way to frame it; a willingness to step out into traffic with the core belief in your value as a human, and caution that there are people who aren’t following your rules, who hold the belief that their goal, their need, their want is more important than your heart. Or perhaps they are simply willing to risk the extensive Chinese police paperwork to get where they are going. One never knows.