Where Has All The Kindness Gone? Can Empty Nesters Bring It Back? E160

Rick Denton (00:00)
This week on The Loud Quiet, where has all the kindness gone? Can empty nesters bring it back? Hey everybody, welcome back to the loud quiet. You know, where has all the kindness gone? It feels like kindness is something that is an incredibly short supply right now. And so we wanted to just talk about is that true? Are we feeling this? Is it real? But also, how can we bring more kindness back into?

Well I'll say the world, but really just our own day to day experiences.

Clancy Denton (00:32)
When you said that it made me think of that song, Where have all the flowers gone?

Rick Denton (00:36)
okay, so I was say I mentioned that I might do an eighties rock reference. You've given me permission now. Where have all the good times gone by Van Halen? So a little throwback to our Sunset Strip episode.

Clancy Denton (00:46)
I

think the one I was quoting was from the sixties or seventies, but yeah, you know, we have these conversations sometimes and

It is just why are people not showing kindness or even just being nice? I don't understand like you know, I've talked about on my walks in the morning. I would say

Sixty percent of people that I run into will respond. I always say hello, smile, wave, always make eye contact. And yeah, I'd say sixty percent respond, but why isn't that a hundred? That should just be automatic. I don't understand.

Rick Denton (01:32)
Let's let's allow for a small percentage of didn't see you, didn't hear you, was in involved. Like some there's going to be a small percentage that we can allow for, but then that leaves the rest of it there. And even when I'm there there are times that I'm not saying hi back to someone, but I might at least, you know, flip a head up or at least wave when I can't say

Clancy Denton (01:50)
And I mean there are some people that are looking at their phones, but the majority are not. Right. And there's people across the street that will make eye contact and wave. I mean, one specifically this week. We were on the same how wide are our sidewalks? Three feet. Passed by each other and I said, good morning, hi. And no response. I mean, I just that's the easiest one.

Rick Denton (02:14)
It is, and it's so easy to fall into a, you know, complaining about others, that sort of thing, but it is so true. You're like you're just sort of befuddled with wait, this is the simple one. One that comes up for us, and it happens, we talk about it a lot in our life group when we're whenever we're talking about kind of a kindness or how can we, you know, be good representatives of our faith, that kind of stuff, and where frequently many of us talk about falling short is on the commute.

And I know this is this is almost like the the lowest bar of comedy. This is the lowest bar of complaint to complain about a commute, but it just sort of shocks me. The other day I was driving into the gym. This is 6:30 in the morning, 640, something like that. So there's people out, but it's not back-to-back traffic. And it was shocking to see the aggressiveness of more than one driver trying to shoot ahead and cut ahead and all of that kind of stuff, cutting people off.

And there was a little part that I kind of chuckled that in the end, you know, all of us end up just kind of catching up right beside them at the next red light. But the actions that were being taking place were so not kind. There's a lot of, you know, hey, it's just my road and you're the one in in my way. And it's weird.

Clancy Denton (03:29)
Gotta be first. I mean that you know, a lot of people I think that's their mentality. I've gotta be first. I have to be at the head of the line all the time. And I I'm

Rick Denton (03:40)
I've

been guilty of that when you say it like that.

Clancy Denton (03:42)
Yeah,

and I've made the joke that if we were still living in the times of Exodus, we would all have to be driving around with a bunch of d a animals in the back to sacrifice every time we did something on the road. I mean, you'd see people pulled over all the place like dude.

Rick Denton (04:01)
Grab the goat out of the back. Screwed up again.

Clancy Denton (04:04)
But yeah, I think it's and you know, even now in this day and age, when someone does something that's kind, you almost have a okay, wait, is this kindness? Are they trying to scam me? You know, those thoughts go into your head. I was listening to a story being told about in LA, someone's car had gotten bumped by another car.

in the parking situation and someone from the other apartment had seen it. So they left a note on this person's car. And he was like, my gosh, that's so sweet. And he said, but then I was like, wait a second, they want they want me to text them and say if anything was wrong, if, you know, I needed their help. And he said, Do they just want my information? Now they know my car's vehicle, you know, the

make and model and license plate of my car and so those thoughts unfortunately creep into our heads and it this was just a neighbor trying to be kind.

Rick Denton (05:09)
Similar to that is how you can be afraid to pull off on the side of the road to help someone that appears to be stranded because you're worried about them scamming or taking advantage. I would ne I I hate to say this, but I would never encourage my children and specifically, and I don't care if I get flamed for this, my daughter. No, don't pull over. Pull out your phone. Calls call resources.

Clancy Denton (05:36)
Jerry

now you can't I mean you can't. I I as a female I would not do that either unless it was another woman or I could see

Rick Denton (05:48)
You you've heard the stories of that. Now, I think one exception to that and it happened on the phone when with Tanner when he was driving back and he said, my gosh, that person just got ran off the road. The first thought is, Hey, do they need help? If you see the incident, but if you come across that

Clancy Denton (06:04)
He's like, No, they just got right back on. He was out he was out in West Texas, so a little different out there.

Rick Denton (06:10)
You know what though? Let's let's take that story a little further. What did he say? my gosh, that person didn't do anything. They just got back on the road and kept driving. And what we were hearing through the phone sounded like could be a clear pre road rage moment. That person chose to, to use a biblical phrase, turn the other cheek. And as I'm saying this, I'm like, well.

Heck, a lot of the stuff that would happen on the roads would not happen if we would just turn the other cheek.

Clancy Denton (06:44)
Yeah. A lot of things in life wouldn't happen if we turned the other cheek. I mean, that's just even in your relationships that you know.

Rick Denton (06:54)
Boy, that can get kinda hard. Like, you know, we're not probably gonna get too much into this, but sometimes the hardest person to be kindest kindest the hardest person to be kind to can be the one that you live with.

Clancy Denton (07:07)
yeah. I was not happy with you last week because and not your fault, but you were sick all week. And I being from a medical background, I'm not the best at taking care. Now I did I always offer to give you things and that kind of things, but I'm like, okay, when are we gonna be over this so that we can get back to

Our life. I mean, I just basically found things to do and went and did myself.

Rick Denton (07:38)
And so did I, the ones that I could do. I I was able to catch up on all the Dune movies since Tanner wants me to watch Dune three. It's interesting. You were functionally kind. You hey, do you have this need? Do you need a pe a food? Do you need a drink? That kind of stuff. But bedside manor kind, I think I'm hearing you say, Yeah, kind of experience. You weren't mean, but you weren't how are you are you okay? You know, that kind of stuff. Well

Clancy Denton (08:05)
Okay, but look here. I'll say this. Cause you did. You had some virus, so you moved upstairs to sleep. So we were both tired, exhausted. We had been on a trip the whole week. So we had decided, hey, we're just gonna sleep in. Well, you had forgotten to turn off your alarm. So for me to

J jump across the bed and try to turn off your alarm that goes off at 5 40 a.m. Yeah, I was not happy. So when you came downstairs, the first thing I said to you was, You forgot to turn off your alarm.

Rick Denton (08:39)
I am

Clancy Denton (08:40)
And yes, I get it. But but my thing is I can tell you things to do to help to get yourself better. And sometimes you don't do them. And so then I'm like, all right, I've told you that.

Rick Denton (08:53)
Wait a second, I did everything you said.

Clancy Denton (08:57)
In this instance maybe you did, but a lot of times when you're sick you will not.

Rick Denton (09:01)
But don't bring baggage from the past into the present because no, I did every single suggestion and it probably helped. Yeah, that alarm one's interesting, because yeah, you you absolutely pissed me off when I came in, and that was the first thing. I mean, I felt like crap that morning. I was not doing well. And that's the first thing, and I'm like, in my head, it was lady, those lights are showing to you too. You could turn them off before you got in bed too.

Clancy Denton (09:27)
I don't check that.

Rick Denton (09:29)
I'm

telling you what was in my head now, it was a kindness for me both probably to you and to my myself, not to say it out loud, but that was the thought that was in my head.

Clancy Denton (09:42)
Anyways, you're over it now and it was a rough week coming back from being a week that we had fun and you know, we had a lot of things that we needed to get done that got put on the back burner, which is fine, but it just was not the way that I wanted to get back into the routine.

Rick Denton (10:08)
So it does show that it it's hard to be it can be hard to be kind to the person that you live with, probably 'cause you take them for granted and that's yeah, there's a whole nother episode, whole nother conversation. Heck, we've got their love language episodes that we talked about just a few episodes ago that totally listened to that 'cause it's exactly that kind of understanding the other person, not taking for granted everything that fits into that.

Clancy Denton (10:28)
I have seen some examples of kindness even this week when I was out shopping. I was at a place that I had one item and the lady in front of me had an entire basket full and there was one person checking people out and she turned to me and she said, my gosh, would you like to go ahead of me? And I was just like, thank you so much because I really would have been standing there for another

fifteen minutes probably and not that I had anywhere to go or be in you know to do but that was just nice and thoughtful. She didn't just look at me standing there with one thing. She actually was kind and said, Why don't you go ahead of me? And I was so appreciative and thanked her over and over again. And so, you know, those kind of things

Rick Denton (11:20)
And that's so simple. Yeah. What it takes though is an observant spirit. That sounds way too Sunday schooly, but just being

Clancy Denton (11:28)
Being observer.

Rick Denton (11:29)
observant. That because there's plenty of times that I might have been that person with all the stuff in the basket. I just may not have ever turned around. And who knows what kind of simmering resentment might have been behind me. But if I turned around, it's such an obvious choice to do of yeah.

Go ahead of me. It's gonna cost me thirty seconds. It'll cost you fifteen. It can be hard to feel kindness in a when you're dealing with a company too. Yeah, a company is a faceless entity, but really a company is just a collection of humans. And so often in like a customer service interaction or something like that, when you're dealing with a company.

It's really it's hard to find kindness there. And it just feels like I'm just so beat down with cynicism working with companies. I had an example though that showed me that companies actually kind of using the example that you used earlier, they didn't do something significantly huge from an effort perspective, but they were observant and then did something that was so kind. I'll tell it from the end. I received a box from a company that had my truck.

Keys in it. Now, why on earth did I get a box sent to me from a company that had my truck keys in it? Well, when I was doing a return for an Amazon company, I accidentally put my truck keys in that return box. And if you want to know the details, they're really dumb. And DM me and I will be happy to tell you the details. And it was about it was the next day I realized, my gosh, my keys are missing, and they're in a box back to a fulfillment center in

Random Tennessee. I'll never see those again. Went and got myself a new spare key. Well, that's when this box showed up a few weeks later. I'd completely forgotten about this, but it showed me that there was someone, and I talk about a company, but there was a human that opened up the box, saw the item I was returning, also saw this other thing, and realized

This person is going to need their car keys. There was no identifying feature on it. There's nothing on it other than them knowing which box it came out of. That was kind. It's as simple as the, hey, do want to go ahead of me in in line? But it required them to be observant. Who knows? Maybe there's policies. I consider policies to be an observant choice by a company. But there was kindness. And I felt so just, yay, there actually is humanity in a company that I didn't think existed anymore.

Clancy Denton (14:05)
Well and what was so surprising about that one is that you had just let it go. Like you didn't even reach out to the company or anything. You were like, Well, I lost my key. I just need to go get a new one. Because

Rick Denton (14:20)
Why would I think that any company would ca they get thousands of returns in a given day? Why would they care about little old me?

Clancy Denton (14:28)
So yeah, it was it was just an unexpected surprise that showed up.

Rick Denton (14:33)
I think that was one of the triggers as to why we even wanted to have this conversation about kindness because it was so shocking. And that's what's so disturbing about this is that kindness can be so shocking when it should be, well, kinda how we should have evolved as humans of we can't really survive as a society without

Clancy Denton (14:53)
Kindness. That should be the first thing. That should be the thing that comes the easiest to a

Rick Denton (14:59)
Well, and what's good about this though is that we've got new technologies now that are really showing us how humans can be kind with each other. There's this thing called social media that is helping connect people in ways and helping them really express that kindness to each other.

Clancy Denton (15:15)
It goes both ways. There are there it that it definitely skews towards the negative.

Rick Denton (15:22)
Toxic.

Clancy Denton (15:24)
But there are good things out there too. And I think sometimes too, depending on what you click on, then we all know the algorithm will keep feeding you that stuff.

Rick Denton (15:38)
Honestly, you know what I'm getting fed right now is a lot of flight attendant videos because of my interested two guys on a plane.

Clancy Denton (15:44)
Well, some of those can be negative too.

Rick Denton (15:48)
You are a hundred percent correct. Thankfully so far they have not been down that. my gosh, you're right. It just hit me. Suddenly my feed is filled with examples of bad passenger.

Clancy Denton (16:05)
It's

Rick Denton (16:05)
Just clicked. And I've just been ignoring like, what is this crap doing here? I don't click that. I don't care about that. I'm not reading that. And at least according to my feed, every single flight is being turned around to its d origin because of someone really passenger. It's the algorithm.

Clancy Denton (16:21)
So I do think that sometimes, you know, we seed ourselves with the negative stuff.

Rick Denton (16:29)
Can I can I challenge you on the we seed ourselves though? Take my story there. I found an entertaining podcast co-hosted by one of the people that we have known and and found to be a great person. I didn't choose to be fed with the negativity, but the algorithm started pushing it to me because it perceives that that is a more engaging element. It's not for me, but I guess overall it is.

Clancy Denton (16:59)
Well, I think for some people, yes, they feed off of negativity. I think that's why we are seeing such a decline in just being a neighbor to each other. I mean that some of the stories that we talk about, if our grandparents heard these or our great grandparents or even to some degree our parents, it it wasn't like that.

When you know

If someone in your neighborhood or someone in your church or someone in your community had something going on, everyone was focused on that person. I think now. I think now we've

Rick Denton (17:45)
And helping that person, not the

Clancy Denton (17:46)
all become so

self-reliant that

Rick Denton (17:56)
Maybe the word is actually just selfish.

Clancy Denton (17:58)
you right. Yeah. That, you know, you go into your house at night and you may not even see your neighbors for weeks, months, years at a time. It's just different because we have so many other things filling our time. So I had an interaction with I call him a celebrity because he's a celebrity to me, but

Rick and I talked about on our California trip. We went to this restaurant that on a podcast that I listened to, they rave about. And yes, it was excellent. And yes, she is kind. I actually heard today on the podcast someone was having surgery and she came over to their house and dropped off pastas on us, all this broth, because she knew that's what they could eat after. So yes, this woman is kind and pours her love into her cooking. So

We had gone to this restaurant and I was like, you know, I want to let him know that hey, we went here. Thank you for the recommendation. It was great. So I DM'd him. I wasn't expecting anything back. And I mean, three minutes later I get back, my gosh, I'm so glad that you and your husband enjoyed it. It's one of my favorites. She's so nice. And then even at the end, because I had sent him a picture.

He's like, my gosh, and your dress is fabulous. You look great. So, you know, that took him thirty seconds.

Rick Denton (19:26)
It it the 30 seconds and he went the step beyond the fact that because he could have just celebrated, yeah, the De Barbara, but for him to then give a kind and what certainly seems very heartfelt compliment, that's a kindness that is free and simple.

Clancy Denton (19:44)
And that's his nature, and I'm glad to see that the nature that I know of him on the show is really how he is.

Rick Denton (19:53)
Ooh, great point that the you know, personalities, public personalities can be different than their off air personality. And that's that's not and I think kindness is a lot of that of how authentic are you? Way too overused a word these days, but I think that is you're can you can you do a faux kindness just so that people see you or are you truly that in your heart?

Clancy Denton (20:16)
And I think it goes, you know, beyond even that, just being empathetic with people too, you know, hearing their story. And then, you know, we try to comment on things when w we see posts and that kind of thing of of people that are dealing with the empty nest. We're in it too. We're we're here and we want y'all to know that we're here and we

know and have been through it and are going through it with you guys at the same time. So okay, so what can we do to be more kind and show kindness to others?

Rick Denton (21:04)
Almost it's almost a conscious choice. Like

Clancy Denton (21:09)
Which isn't that sad though, that it is. I get what you're saying.

Rick Denton (21:14)
I I I don't want to maybe I do want to say the word schedule it. Like if if that's if you're if your life is so filled with what it's filled with, and all of our lives can be filled with our just day to day. I'm this is not a judgment statement. I I've lived it myself. It can be hard to be aware. It can be hard to open the eye. Kind of almost a instead of looking down, look up, look around. And if it requires scroll,

Scheduling it? Well then schedule it. We've done that with our life group, we've done that with our family. And these are service moments. That's not the same as just pure play kindness, but at least service is an expression of kindness. And if that's a way to kind of start to prime the pump, then prime that pump.

Clancy Denton (22:02)
And I think one of the easiest ways talking about service, people in the service industry, one of the easiest ways, the easiest ways that you can show kindness to someone is to be respectful of your server when you're out to dinner or lunch or whatever. Yeah,

Rick Denton (22:22)
Seems like that should be a normal thing.

Clancy Denton (22:23)
uh-huh, it's not. And we observe it and it drives me crazy

Rick Denton (22:28)
What do you mean?

Clancy Denton (22:30)
when they come to fill my water glass.

Always thank you. But then I find myself having to say thank you for other people sometimes that we're out to dinner with because they're not saying it. And no one I'm not n no one who is probably listening, but it's just those little things.

No. Because I say it pretty boldly so people know I know how hard that job is. Okay, well, I don't. I've never done it, but I can assume how hard that job is. So just the simple can I get some more of this, please? Thank you. I mean, even you know, Teagan does it and Tanner does it as well. They the it's been ingrained in them though that yeah, these people are here.

You're enjoying their service, just let them know. That is that is the easiest and you can tell people that have not been taught to do it. It just

Rick Denton (23:35)
Alright, so schedule it and be kind to your servers. We're s we're starting to put a little few granules of humanity out there in the world. Have you seen anybody like really take that scheduling? I we've talked about kind of life group and stuff, but have you seen anything like that?

Clancy Denton (23:49)
Yeah, when we were talking about this topic, my roommate from college came into my head immediately because she is one of the kindest people out there. She actually had a day of kindness that she would do with her kids, family, and they would just go around all day and, you know, just do different

acts of kindness. And if you scroll through her Facebook feed, it's very much filled with thank you for bringing me these cookies. Thank you for thinking of me and doing this. So she is a very good example of kindness from someone who hasn't had the easiest road. And so that just makes it

even more so special.

Rick Denton (24:53)
That's that's neat to hear that like and that's the think about how that's then it trickling down to her kids and her we say her kids, I know who you're talking about, and th these are not these aren't littles anymore. These are these are young adult kids. And how they'll then be able to carry that for you. You said something interesting there. She hasn't had the easiest road. Do you find that those who have had the least easy road, aka the hardest road, are often the most kind?

Am I being too simplistic with that?

Clancy Denton (25:25)
I don't know, because she started this before just

Rick Denton (25:27)
Okay.

Clancy Denton (25:29)
as I mean she's been like that since I've known her since high school. So but you know, I do think yes. I I mean and and we've seen that. We we've seen examples of that. You see examples that of that all the time that people want to give back when they have been given to. Yeah.

Rick Denton (25:48)
Yeah.

Clancy Denton (25:48)
And I think that just creates that cycle of kindness.

Rick Denton (25:55)
i it that reminds me of so I've been doing a Bible study this last few I guess fifteen days, and it's love like Jesus and it is the idea one of the days was talking about love because you have been loved. God has loved you to such a degree that you should then love. And those that are on video, you see me going kind of vertical, then horizontal. And it's that idea of well then act. If you felt this, don't just read a little little study, Rick. Actually act.

act upon it. And I think a lot of that comes from humanity. Like under st getting out of the transactional world of living, of who am I interacting with, and getting into that's a human. And that's a human that has a need and a need that maybe I have been put in that position, that situation to be able to help that need. And that humanity I think is a key part of getting kindness. Now I I want to be

Clear here, even just talking to you, this sounds like I've got it all figured out. No, I was very convicted by this Bible study that I have not got this figured out, that my kindness and specifically my kindness as expressed in acts of service for other people that are in need is very weak. Yeah. And I'm not going to get better just by praying about it over a cup of coffee. I'm going to get, quote, better about this by actually doing something.

Clancy Denton (27:18)
And I think we have definitely talked about that getting more involved in community service things. But, you know, I think if you just start with the little things, sure, that flywheel will start going and and you'll want to do more. And you know, you and I have read this if anyone's read Theo of Golden, there, you know

Rick Denton (27:42)
The author.

Clancy Denton (27:43)
Alan Levy, I don't or Levi, I'm not sure how you but

Rick Denton (27:48)
We'll get a link in the show notes, of course.

Clancy Denton (27:50)
Yeah. So Rick had read this book and he's like, I think you should read it. And it really does sum up just that humanitarian and kindness, service. It just really wraps it all up into this book, this story about this man, and I

I'm I have a few pages left, but last night I wanted to read this quote that at well, I can't say 'cause that gives away something in the book. But anyways, so someone is talking about this person and he said, you know, then do good, bestow kindness, strive for beauty, seek and find the river that leaves to life everlasting.

And draw from the fountain that never runs dry. And I just love that because that's what this person was doing. No one knew who he was. They didn't know his backstory. And he was just doing good acts around this community. And people started noticing. And people started wanting to be better themselves. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's

what you can hope for, especially in the world that we are in right now, that if we can just turn that kindness meter back up a little bit, things will start to change and change for good.

Rick Denton (29:30)
I'm glad that you brought that the Theo of Golden book up here because

Wouldn't it be interesting if that book I had no idea that it was number one on the New York Times bestseller list when I got it. I was inspired to buy it by an editorial in the paper of all things. Wouldn't it be great if that did start to inspire some sort of movement of kindness and and what that could look like? And that's where I I kind of turned to the listeners here.

Is there a movement that we as empty nesters could be a part of that we could support that we could do? And I'm talking about I'm not talking about something grand. I'm talking about just something even just little. Like, are there some of us that are gathered in the same geographic location that we could get together and we could do some sort of act of kindness? Is there a virtual act of kindness? What might that look like? And I mean that as sincerely of a question as I possibly can ask, because I don't know the answer to that question. I'm asking you.

Listeners, viewers, what is an act of kindness? What are some kindnesses that we could collectively do as empty nesters? Let us know on the Facebook group, reach out to us directly. You can leave us a voicemail on our website. Let's see what we might create here because there actually could be something that those of us that have lived life and now are in a stage of empty nest could do to bring more kindness to this world.

Clancy Denton (30:58)
Yeah, just go out this week, smile at someone, try to be kind to someone and just enjoy the cooler temps. That should make everyone a little bit kinder, I'm hoping. Thanks for joining us on another episode of The Loud Quiet.