What is kindness? Many people can’t answer this ‘simple’ question, and it would be wrong to judge them for it. We experience the world from a personal view. Consequently, we tend to think and assess things from an individualistic perspective. Now that we have demystified why people ‘rightly” tend to think more about themselves, kindness is an individual’s ability to be friendly, considerate, and generous. Here also, is a quote from Seneca—a stoic philosopher—on kindness, “Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness”.
To some extent, kindness is like going against the grain. If we experience everything in this world from a personal view (my, us, & our(s)) how then, can we think about others (them & theirs) during our interactions? We can only achieve this by overcoming the way we are wired to experience or interact with the world. When we do this, we create strong bonds and trust with friends, family, and colleagues, and this is why kindness is so important.
People need to be kind to each other, not once or regularly, but always. Many people find it hard to remember what they were told with people who interact with them—even what they were told with close family members or friends. That said, people are also wired to remember how others make them feel. We might, therefore, forget what someone said to us, but we can always remember how they made us feel, and this is another reason why kindness is important in our daily lives.
Everyone Is Fighting Their Battle
Above, we explained how people tend to view the world from a personal perspective. Most of us are also experiencing one or two challenges in different areas of our lives. Nevertheless, people tend to forget about this common truth, especially when we are interacting with other individuals. With this in mind, we can see why Benjamin Cory Harow believes everyone is fighting a battle of some kind.
People should be mindful of how their words and actions will make the other person feel. Being mindful alone is an expression of kindness and people who are mindful can be friendly, considerate, and generous with others. Instead of making other people feel bad by being inconsiderate, unfriendly, or mean, we should strive to express kindness to one another since this will motivate us to fight our battles.
Reasons to be Kind
First, let us start by saying that people don’t need a reason to be kind. Anyone can be kind to anyone when they are anywhere without having any reason to be kind. Since kindness doesn’t bring harm to others, we should practice it more and also use it to show that we care even when we don’t stand to benefit.
Finally, being kind is not complicated. Sometimes, it might feel as if it is, but it shouldn’t be since it is voluntary. It doesn’t take the whole day to be kind to each other. Benjamin Cory Harow would agree with us when we say that being kind is not a chore that we can get tired of doing, but it is a language understood by almost everyone.
