Don’t Back Down

Today, someone backed me. I was flailing. I was trying and I was failing. Nobody was agreeing with me, several people were arguing that what I was doing was altogether fruitless - maybe they were right too - but this relative stranger, right when it mattered, backed me. He’s not a huge hero or anything. His choice didn’t change the course of my life. Nor did it seem to cost him much. But it was the kind of thing you think about later, when you’re driving home, sitting at the lights, waiting for red to turn to green. You think, hey, that was pretty nice of that guy this morning. That made things a lot easier in that moment. That was proof that I’m not all alone.

Public Service Announcement: the world has enough destroyers, blockers, influencers and haters. You don’t have to be a hero. You don’t need to put your neck out and back people against the odds. You can if you like, but gently backing someone? That’s the kind of thing that goes further than you think.

You can’t gently back just anybody. The gentle part of a gentle backing is a hint not only indicative of the low stakes of the situation, but also the delicacy of the operation. Gentle backing demands finer social tools, sharply tuned nuance, instinctive precision.

If, however, what is required is the significant backing of a person; a gentle backing simply will not suffice. Imagine a scenario where your love interest is meeting your family, for example, and your sibling reaches over the dinner table and flicks said love interest on the earlobe with a fingernail. This calls for significant backing. No blurred lines. No shades of grey. You get this wrong, there are real consequences.

Picture, by contrast, standing in line for a coffee in rush hour. You’re the only one who sees it but hat-backwards-guy pushes in front of lady-with-hat. It’s a blatant and deliberate act and lady-with-hat is upset but un-empowered… until… the barista asks the room at large the question already occupying your every braincell. Who’s next?

This is the perfect opportunity for a gentle backing.

Now, some people don’t need a gentle backing. Others, frankly, don’t deserve one. So how do you know if a gentle backing is even going to make a difference? For instance, I could have stood up for myself this morning. I could have stuck to my guns. But I was tired. I’d done a lot of fighting already. And suddenly, there was someone, out of nowhere, suggesting I was worth listening to. And it felt easier to ask.

Did someone speak and nobody listened? Potential cause for a gentle backing!

Is a child looking into a puddle and then at the stick in her hand? Is she testing, do you think, the idea of the stick landing on the surface of the water? Is she imagining, or trying to, what consequence will ripple from her a decision she has not yet made? A gentle backing may be in order!

So many people don’t gently back. This is a perfectly acceptable way to live a life, but there’s a joy, crouching there, undelivered, to those who don’t quietly, unassumingly, extend the generosity of a gentle backing.

A friend of mine is trying to teach herself to cook. She was feeling, the other day, starting out on a new recipe, a cresting wave of anxiety building beneath the overwhelming task ahead of her. Her housemate, she told me later, came into the kitchen just as the anxiety wave was about to crash, and exclaimed in delight at the kitchen smells. Decoding the aromas aloud, a mid-kitchen one-housemate-dance developed to the beat of a delighted song. “Lehh-monnn ZEST! Garrrrlic CLOVE! Sizzling UP on the brand new STOVE!”

Suddenly, thanks to a gentle backing and a spoonful of complete idiocy, my friend’s cooking felt not only less annoying but downright miraculous.

So thank you to the gentle backers. To the people who see glimpses of inequity or irritability or overwhelmitude or ennui and fill the space with a nudge in the right direction. Towards empowerment and kindness and dancing in the kitchen. Who won’t stand by and let people push in line for a coffee. You might now make the hugest difference in the world, but you might make someone smile at the traffic lights because their day was a tiny better than it could have been.