I’ve always firmly believed in the concept of treating others how you want to be treated. Now I know that this is something that has been pressed on us since the day we entered school, but it’s something that has not entirely stuck with some people. As we grow up and grow into our beliefs and mind-frames, we often forget that while we do need to focus on ourselves, we always need to focus on the bigger picture.

As a society, we are becoming complainers. We talk and criticize—yet we do not change. We complain if a person treats us in a bad way. Yet often times when we have the opportunity, we want to treat the person the same way they treated us. We have expressions like “karma”. We tend to think it is okay to treat someone badly because we feel as though the other deserve this. We often believe in revenge. If someone does us wrong, we want to retaliate with similar behavior. We want them to feel as bad as they had made us feel. When in the long run, what good are we doing?

Instead of paying our actions back negatively, we need to pay them forward.

If someone does you wrong, forgive them.

If someone breaks you, uplift someone else.

Compassion is better than resentment.

Because at the end of the day, we are all humans. We all have our problems. We all have our good days. We all have our bad days. We all have struggles. We make mistakes. We accidentally do bad things. We learn. We need to forgive ourselves. We need to forgive others.

We need to start treating others how we want to be treated. We need to hold doors open for others because we want the door held open for us. We need to forgive people because we know we would want to be forgiven. We need to compliment others because we know we want them to lift us up in return.

If we do not learn about forgiveness and acceptance, then what good does that do for us? If we do not treat others with kindness, how can we expect kindness in return? There are no consequences if you act out of the love in your heart. That struggling man on the streets will not be mad at you for donating him a dollar-- he will be grateful. That woman who is crying on a park bench will not be irritated by you offering a helping hand-- she will be relieved that somebody cares enough to support her.

Good deeds do not go unnoticed.

When something bad happens to us, it is important to work diligently to keep it from negatively affecting us. Be better, not bitter. Let negative actions remind us to positively cultivate our interactions with others and remind us how to treat others. By stooping to others’ levels and throwing away our values for temporary “payback” satisfaction, all we’re really doing is hurting ourselves. There is no good in doing wrong to those who have wronged us. We need to learn to forgive.

We need to be kind.

As Gandhi once said, "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."