One of the first lessons we are taught in life is to simply be kind. From sharing and taking turns to being nice to your neighbor, it’s embedded in us from a young age that being nice matters. As we grow up, we are taught a million other things, but at the end of the day, at at the bottom of everything – compassion is key to living a happy life and encouraging others to do the same. Someone who lives a perfect example of this, even in the spotlight, is Harry Styles. He is polite, caring, and genuinely happy to get to show any gesture of kindness to anyone he encounters, it’s a beautiful way to live.
In saying that, it makes absolutely no sense that one could find disdain in their hearts for Harry in any sense, especially enough of it to be disrespectful. Unfortunately, however, that was the case as news broke on June 8th that Harry’s London home was vandalized.
In an alarming display of selfishness and, quite frankly, crude and nasty behavior, the word c*** was painted across an outside wall of Harry’s home in London. It was pointed out that this vandalism comes on the heels of an interview from Simon Cowell where he said he doesn’t anticipate seeing the boys together again “for a while”. Whether or not this has anything to do with the vandalism is just a game of guessing, but as the boys themselves have all promised a return, we certainly hope people believe and trust the boys enough to not be this unkind to them when they hear things about their hiatus from the mouths of other people.
Harry is not one to retaliate or bring attention to people who treat him unkindly. Much like his band mate and friend Niall Horan said recently, after personal harassment, the boys are all more worried about continued unkindness happening to others than it happening to themselves. And while there is, unfortunately, nothing that we can do to stop people who desire attention enough to harm others in the process without concern, we can mirror a way of life we’ve seen Harry live for years.
We can just be polite. We can wake up and see disrespect and choose to do better. We can live nicer. We can spread happiness, be compassionate, and love people even when they seem to not deserve it. We can be thankful for our joy, our blessings, the things we’ve worked for and in the face of adversity, we can smile anyway and know that if our hearts live with love, we come out victorious in the end.
The difference between doing something and not doing something is doing something.
— Harry Styles. (@Harry_Styles) September 6, 2012
Harry has set a standard for young people all across the world by the way he exists. He shakes the hand of every single person he works within a day, he treats every person he meets like they’re the only person in the world. He encourages his fans to love one another and accept each other for their differences, and he proves daily that being sweet is more important than anything else and he truly lives by a 4-word statement he made years ago.
Be nice to nice.
The world isn’t always very nice to Harry, and his fans say that the world doesn’t deserve him quite often, but we are blessed enough that he hasn’t let his fortune and circumstance or the negative things people send his way harden his heart, if anything, he uses all of that as fuel to be more compassionate.
So today, let’s refocus, and instead of getting angry or wanting to get even, show Harry some love and gratitude and let him know how thankful we are for the kindness he exudes and how much we love him for the joy he spreads, simply by existing.
Use the hashtag #CanYallRespectHarry and tweet him some happiness, we’ll post some of it over on our CelebMix 1D Twitter account as well.