George Saunders

She did something once that was when I hit about 15, I was charged with responsibility of going to get a Christmas tree and you could self cut the tree and bring it back.

And so I went with my aunt and uncle and I picked out a perfect tree, brought it home and then we put it up and it was terrible.

It had huge gaps.

It was like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

And I was a little embarrassed by that because I'd failed in my first manly undertaking.

And so my mother, God bless her, she said, don't worry, it's going to be all right.

And she got a drill and some shears and she took the branches off the bottom part of the tree and retrofit them into the tree.

So it was perfectly shaped.

Filling the gaps.

Yeah.

And now at the time I felt that it's such a loving gesture because she saw that I was embarrassed.

Yeah.

Didn't make a big deal of it, but just said, we're going to make this all right.

And so I've kept that in my heart as in my teaching, especially where if someone is in some way defective or making, you don't have to call it out.

You can know it and then you can gently correct and then give them a chance to move on from it.

But yeah, I made a speech back a few years ago, a very short speech, and it's followed me around.

But I do believe in...

Kindness, as long as we interrogate it and find out what it actually is.

Sometimes in the States, it just means niceness.

So you can be a real jerk, but as long as you have a sunny exterior.