The holiday season is in full swing, and we feel like it’s the best time of the year to remember how wholesome, kind, supportive, welcoming, and selfless people can truly be, despite their perceived differences. That’s why we’re featuring the ‘Gates Open, Come On In’ subreddit, an online community of nearly 340k people today.
The online group presents itself as the exact opposite of r/gatekeeping and features folks being true legends who accept others no matter who they are, instead of angry gremlins who don’t want to let anyone new into their communities. Scroll down for some of the best anti-gatekeeping posts and hard proof that people really do have each others’ backs when push comes to shove.
Pssst, Pandas, if you’re looking to restore some more faith in humanity, then you’ll definitely want to check out Bored Panda’s previous article about some more great real-life anti-gatekeeping examples. You can read it right here.
British psychotherapist Silva Neves shared with Bored Panda his take on why some people feel the need to act as gatekeepers at all. "The theory is that it comes from our inner sense of survival. At times when we lived in tribes, it was part of survival to fear people outside of the tribe because they might have been a threat to the tribe," he explained to me. "In our modern world, to some extent, we have kept that sense of survival, although unnecessary now, but still subconsciously strong."
However, Silva notes just how much impact even small gestures of kindness can have. "When we learn to be kind to others, we're actually learning to be kind to ourselves. We need both." Scroll down for to read what he had to say about this.
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"We don't often realize that a very small gesture of kindness, even just a smile to a stranger, can trigger a chain of kindness and love to their social circle, and the ripple effects can be felt to the greater society," psychotherapist Silva shared with Bored Panda the power that even a small act of kindness can have in the world around us. In fact, we're naturally hard-wired to help others.
Everyone (Saw This Posted Somewhere Else On Reddit So Thought It'd Be Worth The Cross-Post)
Marry Whomever You Wish
"Being kind and helpful is a natural high for us, as it produced feel-good brain chemicals, so it tends to make us happier. Seeing others happy can also produce feel-good chemicals. So it is all round a very good thing for physical and mental health to be kind to ourselves and others," he said.
"If we do that, we tend to live happier lives and, even if we don't always see it, it is important to remind ourselves that any small gesture of kindness contributes to a kinder world. And, right now, the world needs a lot more kindness."
I Just Like Animals
We Can All Get Along!
Everyone Starts Somewhere
‘Action for Happiness’ explained to me earlier that altruism and kindness are closely linked to our own happiness.
"Think about how you can reach out and do things for others, help a neighbor or volunteer for a cause, we get happiness high from helping other people. Or start small and simply list three things that you can be grateful for each night before bed,” Sarah Vero from ‘Action for Happiness’ shared with Bored Panda.
According to Sarah, the 10 keys to happier living are: “Giving, relating, exercising, awareness, trying out, direction, resilience, emotions, acceptance, and meaning. We are likely to be happier if our lives have direction, meaning, and purpose and if we are part of something bigger than ourselves.”
Depression Gateopening
Read It All
Keep Doing What You Like, Support Others Who Do The Sam
Vanessa King, the Head of Psychology at ‘Action for Happiness,’ noted that we’re a social species and that helping others out is part of who we are. Being kind, lending a helping hand are the “social glue that keeps us together.”
“When we do things for others it activates the reward center in the brain, so when we give a gift it feels the same as receiving a gift," Vanessa stressed.
“Small daily actions one at a time can help us to make altruism a lifetime habit. You could start out small by deciding you are going to smile at everyone you meet or pay three people a compliment today,” she said.
You're Not A Product
I have to say the internet ruined quite a few hobbies for me. Going out to find tips and tricks and finding communities full of people who are soooooo much better at it then I’ll ever be, discourages me too much. In “ye old days” I just did whatever I liked and never knew how bad I was at it. So now I just avoid those kind of hobbies online. I’m happier not knowing if I’m good or not :)
I Love This Man More Than Certain Family Members
Damn, son, just wear a crop top and some underpants. Get those wet and you'll get some real attention.
This Is Beautiful
Human beings don’t hold a monopoly on empathy. Plenty of other animals have feelings and have demonstrated that they feel bad for other beings if they’re in trouble. For instance, a while back I wrote about an experiment on rat friendship.
As it turns out, rats help each other out if they sense that they’re distressed. However, they prefer to help rats who are most like them. Scientist Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal told Bored Panda that “rats will help others of their ingroup (cagemates and strangers of the same strain) but not the outgroup (strangers of a black-furred strain they are not familiar with).” In other words, rats are selective in who they help. However, this behavior changes the more familiar rats become with members of their outgroup.
Working People Are My People!
Always keep in mind that your employer is paying you the least amount they feel they can to keep you around(Sure, there are exceptions, but 98% are).
Art Is For Everyone
This! It's so hard to start anything new as an adult since everybody expects at your age you have to be nearly professional!
There are really only two rules in life... 1 - Do things that make you happy... 2 - Don't do things that make others unhappy.
One of Picasso's daughters gave a snooty talk to a museum group I belonged to. She said "If you don't know you are an Artist by the age of three, you aren't one". Everyone looked at her like she was a goddess dripping wisdom. I thought "FU elitist" and got up and walked out.
That's sad. Her father probably scared her creativity out of her.
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My favorite artist lives across the hall from me and started painting at 87, and is currently 95. Her name is Imogene, but she signs all of her pictures, "IMA". I Asked her if that was short for her first name or was it something else ( it's obvs not her initials, I know those) she salts me with, " I don't sign it that way because it's just my nickname, I sign it that way because I'ma artist!" You are indeed.
Tell her that ima in Hungarian means prayer. She might like that.
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I'm really good at art and whenever people compliment me and tell me about talent and say they gave up, I say nah, it's just practice. Keep trying.
Same! Whenever I post something to the WoF wiki and someone asks me how I did it, I just say practice.
Load More Replies... This, so much this! I'm learning guitar and am practicing in front of my kids because it helps them to know and understand that learning doesn't stop when you're an adult. And, I don't have to be good at it, there's no pressure to be, it's just pure joy.
Van Gogh was 27 when he started creating art. Just leave your ears alone and skip the suicide part.
Just start. If it all looks like squiggles, who cares? BOB ROSS Method: No mistakes, only happy accidents! :-)
My mom had always wanted to learn the cello, but her family couldn't afford to buy a cello, and you couldn't rent one back then. When she got married and had a family, she was still too poor to afford one. When my family's business finally started to pick up, now she had not time because she had kids and a business to take care of. When I graduated high school, and half her kids were out of the house and the other half were at the point of self-sufficiency, she finally got to have her own cello. Way to go ma, first time learner at 50. And she loves it.
And... not just “beginners.” Kudos to that 72-year-old who’s been drawing for years and finally kind of gets perspective
This is true across the boards unfortunately. Late career changer? LGBTQ coming out in adulthood? Suicidal thoughts at middle age or more? Lots and lots of help, classes, advice, and programs for youth out there (Nothing wrong with that!!) but there is very little once you reach a certain age (whatever that may be say over 25?)
I used to be able to draw well, then I fractured my wrist, I can't draw well anymore and I'm scared to try again, but this post inspires me to practice at some point too, and maybe I won't be able to draw well anymore, but it's all good fun. <3
How does one rebuild the creative soul when they watch themselves being erased. Having had to watch and listen to your artistic side being detached from who you are and dismiss what makes you whole. I look at a blank watercolor paper or lined notebook paper with the same hesitation of committing myself to it by making the first line. I have let go a bit by returning to the most perfect package design ever, the egg. I I started experimenting with all types of materials I can't always control. The effects of alcohol inks etc. A leap of freedom considering the hours invested in detailed Russian eggs and the hand painted patchwork crazy quilt patterns that required hours of time. All were thrown away by those who claimed they knew me. How does one regain that artistic heart and soul? And become fearless as before. Or at least a little less afraid of doing what they love and need to let out or implode.
I taught in a college for years, most of my art students were retired with a longing to make art but had been told, either by themselves or others, that they weren’t very good at it. Everyone starts somewhere. I compare it with learning to write. We weren’t born with the knowledge but after being shown many many times and practicing doing the same thing over and over again ,it can be done. Mostly, drawing is about observation and analysis before you even get a pencil to paper.
I took a drawing class at a Monart school. It was me and a bunch of 6 year olds. I was 50.
I don't mean to be unkind, but do we need to put all we do on social media for the likes? Take some time to learn a skill before sharing it. Children excepted, but social media can be vicious for no reason but to harm.
Just as the longest journey starts with a single step; the ceiling of the Sistine chapel started with a single line of charcoal. It doesn't matter when you start. It only matters that you start!
I went back to school to get a bachelors of fine art at the age of forty. Best decision I ever made.
Everyone wants to excuse the children, but ignore the adults who are struggling because they didn't have the chance as children. I
I took an art class in college. The instructor gave us an assignment to draw a copy of a picture he gave us, of a small stack of books, old books. I think I did a really good job and even my roommate said so also. I get to class, turn in the assignment, and he returns it the next day to us all, and on the back of mine he writes, you should've drawn the books to scale. B-. Well, he never said to scale, but didn't even comment on the actual job I did! Made me feel so bad, and like I had no talent. I never took another art class again. He was a really big **ck. Adults do need encouragement and friendly help! When we are just starting to do something. You could squash someone's dreams by not doing that. Let alone the damage done to anyone's psyche.
Very well said. A great book that helps beginning artists to "see", is "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".
I drew when I was 5. But I still can't grasp well. So I just enjoy how I draw.
Same goes for writing. So many successful authors were people who started in their 40s and 50s.
I started playing fiddle at about 28. I’ve had to take breaks now and then because of a number of various reasons but I keep coming back to it. It can be heartbreakingly hard, it’s injured me a couple of times, but I just keep on with it anyway. I’ll never be brilliant at it but I play it like no one else and that’s enough.
Thank you, I'm going to town & treating myself to every form of drawing I would like to try
Humiliation Fetish
“The encouraging thing is that we then found that cohabitation, living with a rat from the other strain for two weeks totally changes this behavior, and now rats will help that cagemate from the other strain. Even more impressively, after living together for two weeks with one rat of the other strain, they will help strangers from the other strain as well,” Bartal said.
The scientist added that social experience is actually what determines whether or not rats help each other, not their genetic similarity. Bartal said that in one case, rats were fostered at birth with those from another strain. “Like Mowgli, they were raised with the other strain and never encountered their own kind. When they grew up, they only helped rats of the adoptive strain, not the biological strain.”
For All Relationships
With Open Arms
You Are All Right
In Bartal’s view, a lot of the discussion on animal empathy gets stuck on semantic issues. “For instance, the definition of empathy, how can we say that animals really feel empathy the same way we do. But empathy is a construct. We don’t even know what it is in humans really!” she said.
“I operate on the assumption that there is an evolutionary continuum between species, and that the basic building blocks of our responses are shared. Being sensitive to distress in others and motivated to care about their suffering is as old as the moment mother and child became connected for survival after birth.”
I Liked This One
Exactly! I almost always play easy mode, because I suck at them, but still enjoy them. Gaming is supposed to be fun, relaxing and a way to escape reality, not a second job! Unless it is your job, of course :D
Can’t Decide Whether This Belongs Here Or In Humansbeingbros
Have A Seat, Enjoy The View, Everyone Is Welcome
Pros And Cons Of GF...
Anyone Can Play Games
Liberal Arts
Gaming Is For Everyone
My dad never had any sons. He introduced his two daughters to video games and motorcycle racing. I became a lifelong gaming enthusiast, and my little sister bought a motorbike. :D
Respect To You For Doing Anything
Drink What You Like!!!
Spread The Positivity
A Novel‘S Worth Of Nerd S**t
Let People Be Happy
Wholesome Hotel
Let's Just Love Everyone
If anyone wants to continue the heartwarming goodwill, Jewish Voice for Peace is a great organization that supports Palestinian self-determination, supports peace and justice in the Middle East, and stands against anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab bigotry.
Like What You Like
Everyone Is Welcome On This Server
Does This Doormat Count?
Vegan BBQ
You're Never Too Old For Success
This Subreddit In A Nutshell. This Applies To So Many Communities
When The Old Becomes New Again
Love Is Always Valid. Assume The Best First!
this! i am truly loved for the first time in my life, and im in my early 40s. its amazing and i want to share that. If you've always had that it might seem a bit lame to post about it, but take a second to consider experiencing it for the first time
Love What You Are
No Beer Is Girly Beer
I Love My Grandma So Much. She Got Her Point Across Without Being Mean To The Family Friend
Can't Argue With Mom!
Like What You Like
You can find men or women attractive and it not be sexual at all...
There's Some Logic There
As A Metal Head, Everyone Is Welcome!
Vent’s Open Come On In
Fire
Play The Game Any Way You Want
Note: this post originally had 79 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Lovely post! I agree with them all, and forgive me I know I'll get down voted, but I just don't feel comfortable with gender neutral toilets. For no other reason than the fact there are some real dangerous creeps in this world. It just scares me I guess.
Over 20 years ago I studied in Copenhagen and the school had gender neutral toilets. They still have them and it was absolutely no problem when I was there. What I always wonder, why do apparently a lot of people honestly think a "women only"-sign will somehow keep male rapists out of women's bathrooms? An insane amount of women and girls have already been molested or worse in "their" (public) bathroom by despicable bastards. Men and boys have been molested in their bathrooms by despicable bastards. Most people are decent folks, so don't fear average dudes in your bathroom. It also smells a wee bit of transphobia, too, especially when trans people don't "pass".
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I know this maybe the same post as before but I still want to do it. To all the people reading this: You are beautiful, you are unique, you have so much talents. You are a special protagonist in your story. This may be the end of 2021. If there's any good things happen in your life, keep moving forward because it's not the end of the story, this is a new chapter of your life. If bad things had happened to you, don't stop, keep marching, because you are in your character development story. We may have never meet face to face before, but we are friends that shaking hands and said how do you do, no matter where we are from, what color we have, if we are are part of queer or not or what religions we follow. May your day fill with rainbows
Genuine Q: is there a label for people who don't like labels? No problem with other people doing it if it works for them but I've always struggled to think of myself as anything except just a person and I don't like feeling I have to pick a box and stay in it.
I agree entirely! I remember being in school (a little before gender fluid etc was as present in the media) and going 'I like this, but don't really fit into this group' etc. I don't think you need to label yourself or others, it doesn't effect how I interact with people and why should it? I don't even find job titles something I need to know about people in my personal life.
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You know I find it funny that boredpanda takes a lot of its content from Reddit but practically everyone on Reddit hates boredpanda because if all the liberals lol
Lovely post! I agree with them all, and forgive me I know I'll get down voted, but I just don't feel comfortable with gender neutral toilets. For no other reason than the fact there are some real dangerous creeps in this world. It just scares me I guess.
Over 20 years ago I studied in Copenhagen and the school had gender neutral toilets. They still have them and it was absolutely no problem when I was there. What I always wonder, why do apparently a lot of people honestly think a "women only"-sign will somehow keep male rapists out of women's bathrooms? An insane amount of women and girls have already been molested or worse in "their" (public) bathroom by despicable bastards. Men and boys have been molested in their bathrooms by despicable bastards. Most people are decent folks, so don't fear average dudes in your bathroom. It also smells a wee bit of transphobia, too, especially when trans people don't "pass".
Load More Replies... I know this maybe the same post as before but I still want to do it. To all the people reading this: You are beautiful, you are unique, you have so much talents. You are a special protagonist in your story. This may be the end of 2021. If there's any good things happen in your life, keep moving forward because it's not the end of the story, this is a new chapter of your life. If bad things had happened to you, don't stop, keep marching, because you are in your character development story. We may have never meet face to face before, but we are friends that shaking hands and said how do you do, no matter where we are from, what color we have, if we are are part of queer or not or what religions we follow. May your day fill with rainbows
Genuine Q: is there a label for people who don't like labels? No problem with other people doing it if it works for them but I've always struggled to think of myself as anything except just a person and I don't like feeling I have to pick a box and stay in it.
I agree entirely! I remember being in school (a little before gender fluid etc was as present in the media) and going 'I like this, but don't really fit into this group' etc. I don't think you need to label yourself or others, it doesn't effect how I interact with people and why should it? I don't even find job titles something I need to know about people in my personal life.
Load More Replies... You know I find it funny that boredpanda takes a lot of its content from Reddit but practically everyone on Reddit hates boredpanda because if all the liberals lol
