To Do No Harm

“Before you speak, think -Is it necessary? Is it true? Is it kind? Will it hurt anyone? Will it improve on the silence?” - Sri Sathya Sai Baba

This, as with some other trite and concise exhortations, can very easily become misguided.

To 'Do No Harm' sounds simple enough. We could just do nothing then, and thus guarantee that at least we are not harming anyone. Hmmm.

Remember in Grand Canyon, which Kevin Cline is standing on the street corner, and he steps out and quickly the woman behind him grabs him from behind, by the collar, and tugs him backward and suddenly SWOOSH! A city bus misses him by 1 second? Yeah? He recalls it in the movie, this woman saved his life, and they said few words, and he'll never see her again, and she saved his life.

It's my favorite example of the potential for 'inaction' to do harm. If she hadn't pulled him back, he'd have died. Her inaction would have done harm. Inaction at no cost to herself saved his life. Well, are we obligated to 'prevent harm'?

Sai Baba tells us to think before we speak. Is it true, kind, and necessary? This is poignant, and powerful, it gives us pause, but it does not guide us. Or, if it does guide us, how so? Here's where the idea goes wrong.

Is it necessary? We can make a couple of assumptions about the world as it is, without our words, and the world that might be, with our words. A couple of assumptions should suffice, and in lieu of discernment or profound knowledge, we can easily make a mistake on this single point.

How do YOU decide to be the cause, and how did you arrive at your belief about the effect?

Tricky at the very least.

Okay, now how about truth? We often restrain ourselves from saying something that will put us at risk or make someone else feel bad. We neglect being honest because we'd prefer to do no harm. Choosing to be 'less honest'?

As for kind, well, we often say unkind things without thinking them through, not even for 1 second.

So, we have a thought, we're about to say something, and we pause. Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary? And we figure out, through our powers of introspection, that our words fail one of those tests. So, we remain silent, comfortable in the knowledge that we've restrained ourselves from doing some kind of harm. We may even be impressed with our restraint.

But we may have been mislead.

Is it true? Kind? Necessary? We use this, occasionally, to be lazy and deceitful. We keep our words to ourselves,we don't stand up for our beliefs or our boundaries, perhaps we even suffer abuses, and sometimes allow harm to be done when saying something might have prevented it.

So how do we decide? How can we apply principles to what we say and do instead of using cuteness to give ourselves a way out?

Here's a short example.

You bring your dishes to the kitchen, but you never put them in the dishwasher, and it makes me crazy. It's like, dude, there's the dishwasher. Do you not know how to open it? Do you wonder what might be in there? Are you worried about putting the clean dishes away cuz you're in a hurry? Are you just to lazy to help those little bitty dishes into the machine? You need me to be here to support you in getting dishes clean? What the hell? Truly a nightmare, right?

Some would say you have to say all of that or you're being dishonest. Ahem. No. You may need to say something, or go insane, but you might be able to 'craft' your words a bit. I digress....

Is saying something necessary? Is it truly important to you that people take part in the dish washing scheme of the home? Is it truly upsetting you? If the answer is no, then you're done. Don't say anything. Yay! You showed restraint. But what if the answer is yes? Does Sai Baba's statement mean you have to keep silent?

Sort of. Because what you crafted in the moment was not very kind. So shut up.

But it is true, the behavior is making you crazy. What can you do?

Said another way, how can we be 'honest' if we don't say something?

Many people just stop here. They keep it to themselves, they neglect to confront from fear blossoming forth from who knows where, and they grasp at any excuse to be silent.

Others grasp onto one third of the statement and say 'At least I'm being honest, right?'

But people are to lazy to take a moment to find a way to meet all three. Actively pursue the statement. Stay true to yourself, and find a very polite way to mention that you'd appreciate some help keeping the counters clean and clear. "Dear, could you please help me out by not simply putting the dishes in the sink, but finding a way to get them into the dishwasher?" If they respond "The dishwasher is full!" Then politely ask them to help you by emptying it, together.

How are we doing? Not so hot. We've said what we need. But have we been honest? Entirely? Why is it important that we get help with this? IS it that we want them to be more responsible for keeping the house clean? Is it that we fight a never-ending uphill battle with seven people never cleaning up after themselves?

We've left out an I message. We left ourselves out of the equation.

Here's a NOT I statement. "It frustrates me SO much when you don't put your dishes in the dishwasher!" Sounds like blame.

The I statement. "You know dear, I don't know why it bothers me so much, but I get really upset for some reason when I come in the kitchen and there's dirty dishes everywhere." Aha. Honest, polite, and it may help to get our kitchen duties sorted out.

Is it an improvement on saying nothing? Perhaps. But at the very least it is a careful approach to retain civility while airing our desires while reducing or removing the blame element. We've taken responsibility for our own feelings, and we've tried to improve the situation. Hmm.

But what's the consequence of remaining silent? What's the consequence of speaking up? We can't really know. We just have to do our due diligence to do our best.

Also, we've shown we can be 'not deceitful' and 'not lazy', and we want things to be better.

We've also done no harm. We've not harmed the other person by blaming, and we've not harmed ourselves by repressing our true feelings.

Hmmm. Sounds pretty good, but there's one more tricky spot we haven't covered.

Of three elements, true, kind, and necessary, can an argument be made either way?

Is it true? We can frequently establish that something is true or false. Not always, but often. We can also establish necessity. If no one washes the dishes, what happens? Eventually we run out of clean dishes to eat off of. But what about kind?

This is where people fall completely off the cause and effect train. If I say something kind to you, who is it that decides if it's kind?

Are 'kind intentions' all I need?

Or do YOU have to feel the words were kind?  Because if you do, then don't I have to ask you if they were kind words?  Don't I have to engage you in potentially complex and risky conversation to make sure you received the kindness as it was intended?

Kindness is not up to us, internally. Ina sense neither are necessity and truth, but kindness to another cannot be derived from introspection. It MUST be felt in order to be kind. Our actions and words MUST be interpreted.

A clear example is when a man sees a pretty woman and says "My, you look beautiful today!" Does she take it as simple kind acknowledgement of his pure intentions?  Or does she react defensively, maybe due to prior hurt or training, and wonder 'what's this pervert going for here?'

Tricky. Do we quake in concern that she will take it wrong? Or can we go out of our way to insure, as best we can, that it is taken as a form of admiration with no ill thought or desire for further connection?

If we do no harm, we may stay silent, we don't want to offend her. But if we do no good then we may have passed up an opportunity to boost someone's esteem, perhaps an esteem sorely in need of boosting?

It takes time, and thought, and reasoning, and analysis of cause and effect to do our best to find a way to 'do no harm'.

It only takes a bit of laziness to do no good.