Kindness — what do we mean when we talk about it? It can be interpreted as a simple act or it can be a state of mind. Many years ago, I encountered an act of kindness I did not expect and it has had a considerable impact on me. The source of that act was someone with whom I had previously been in conflict with. The action they took, when there were many options, was to result in me reappraising a lot of things, including my relationship with ‘kindness’ and understanding why it needs to be more than a casual comment. We can be very flippant about casual ‘kindness’, after all, we see badges, t-shirts, hashtags extolling us to ‘Be Kind’. I used to wear one myself.
Then I stopped. Not because I wanted to stop being kind, but because I wondered if ‘kindness’, was an ‘easy way out’. I wondered if it had become too easy to ask for kindness rather than accept it as a condition we can only ever demand of ourselves. It cannot be ‘demanded’ from others because it is not only about the actions we take but the motivations behind our actions and they can’t be changed with a slogan. It is easier to ask others to ‘Be Kind’ than to remind ourselves. It is easier to say it to ourselves than take the actions and change our actions in order to actually do it. Ultimately, our own relationship with ‘kindness’ is not something we are ever able to judge. It is an aspect of who we are, and what we are, that can only be judged by others.
I used my little badge as a mental reminder to myself to ‘be kind’ rather than a demand of anyone else. That’s what I told myself, anyway and how I justified it to myself, but true kindness, the kindness when a soul has shifted, it doesn’t need reminding. Don’t get me wrong, I did not remove it because I thought I had achieved it, more than I knew I needed to do far more, in terms of regarding who and what I am as an individual, than subscribe to a motto. Kindness is not a demand, kindness is not a reminder, kindness needs to become a being.
I possessed a job, at the time, where I welded significant power. I still do, but in a less obvious way. Often, when meeting someone and introducing myself and my role, I would engender fear. I found this odd, because I knew I wasn’t ‘scary’ but the person meeting me for the first time, in that context, did not. My little ‘Be Kind’ badge, which I put inside my coat, was a reminder, even in my darker moments, that I held power and one poorly judged comment on one of my bad days, could create limitless distress and upset that I had not intended. ‘Kind’ probably wasn’t the right word though. This recollection and these reminders, needed to form part of my internal character without relying on badges and slogans. If I need a badge to remind me, what is that saying about my internal motivations? I need to work far more on that.
Kindness has to emerge from an intrinsic desire to overcome what might be instincts (and it is probably saying far more about me than any reader) to make an immediate comment that could offend, unnecessarily, or choose to take an action which might, while making my life easier, lead to greater difficulties, challenges or hurt to other people. It also depends on the context and whether it is in a personal capacity or a professional capacity that one takes actions. It can be easier to be flippant than to be kind. It can be easier to be furious than to be kind. Kindness doesn’t preclude anger, but it can limit how we express the anger and the forum into which we expose it.
Kindness isn’t always ‘nice’. Sometimes, truth is required. Sometimes, actions need to be taken which will cause hurt or upset. We can consider how we take these actions. I am thinking back in my professional experience, when I needed to take decisions to forcibly remove a person who is mentally ill to hospital. That is something that cannot be done ‘nicely’ but it can be done with kindness. The kindness is in explaining, clarifying, being competent and being humane. Kindness is in understanding the place that person is. Kindness is listening with attention. Kindness is learning about and respecting that person who stands in front of it, sometimes at our mercy.
The kindness comes with how we approach the tasks that we need to do and the way we think about our own impact on that context. Acting with kindness can cause upset. Acting with kindness is acting without selfishness though. It is having a consideration of the other person and their perspectives. It is thinking about what they need from the situation even if the situation is terrible and we are part of the aspect of that situation. It is not expecting kindness in return, although that is always helpful. Kindness is acting with humility. Kindness is learning.
It is thinking and reflecting on each action we take, as we take it, and the decisions that we have open to us and thinking, what is the desired outcome and how does this impact other people. The kindness I referred at the start was an unexpected kindness to me, from someone I had a fraught relationship with. I wasn’t expecting them to reach out and do something for me which helped me. I wasn’t expecting compassion. It was still an unexpected source. That act, many years ago, spurred my actions towards others, on so many occasions.
I don’t always do ‘kindness’. I try to. I try to when I remember. This is something I know I can keep practising not only because it makes life easier for those around me, but because, ultimately, it makes my own life easier. There is a kindness to self that one can adopt when you see it around you. You find it easier to spot the motivations in others and then that leads on to the motivations in yourself. I am a work in progress and that is partly why I write. Writing helps me unravel my relationships with aspects of myself which I want to be. Adopting perspectives of kindness towards those whom I feel have wished me ill or harmed me is a difference to ‘forgiveness’, it is about trying to shift understanding. Ultimately, every human being thinks they are a ‘kind’ person. We all have the reasons to justify our actions, actions than another person may judge to be cruel or harmful. It is in trying to understand those motives and perspectives that the kindness can be unravelled.
Do I benefit from being kind towards someone who means me ill? I would have to be aware of their intention in order to answer that and it is unlikely anyone who share that with me. Maybe it is a way to nudge in the direction of greater understanding and preventing myself from entering the ‘defensive’ spaces that can’t lead to coming together of differences.
Actively engaging with a desire to be more thoughtful towards others, helps to make us more aware of what we need and what priorities we have and how we can constantly seek to grow as moral humans in this spaghetti tangle of life and interactions that we don’t always choose but need to find our way through.
I am still, very much, working it out.
