If You Work Really Hard and You’re Kind, Amazing Things Will Happen

January 31st, 2010Blog1 comment

Coco had it right bigtime when he said this during his last speech. Kindness is important; watching out for other people is important. Doing what you can, lending a hand, and building relationships is vital in any endeavor.

The thing is, kindness is tough. It takes time and energy to write thank-you notes. Sometimes it’s hard to remember to smile, and to keep it from becoming a phony reflex action — it takes energy to keep your mind open so that every smile comes from a genuine, truthful place. It takes effort to remember peoples’ names (something which I am horrible at), and to maintain that enormous rolodex of information about them. And the toughest part about kindness is showing it in the face of hostility — sometimes even kindness can be a hard sell.

Yeah — kindness is hard, but at least it doesn’t cost money. It costs time and it costs energy, but at least it’s inexpensive. If you’re poor, kindness might be all that you can give; and man, is it ever appreciated. And if you’re rich: You’d better be kind, motherfucker. Because being kind will open up opportunities for you that have nothing at all to do with money.

But yeah — marry kindness to hard work and talent, and you’ve got the keys to the goddam kingdom.

Okay, the blowback from the Internet on the iPad has been going on since last week. I’ve been glued to all the coverage and I’ve really been enjoying the circus.

Andy Ihnatko supplies some reactions to the iPad based on his limited “fondle-time” at last week’s SteveNote:

The iPad is too different, and the day is too early, to make any sort of call on the success or failure of this thing. At worst, Apple will be faulted for atypical conservatism. At best, the iPad will be likened to the first Mac, which combined hardware and UI elements that were familiar on their surface, but which had finally been combined in the right way to produce a satisfying stew that everybody else will leap to copy.

You should read the rest of this report. Not only does Andy Ihnatko seem to have it right, he’s also a very entertaining writer.