Kindness

Am I a kind person or am I just a friendly, easygoing and likeable friend? Or none of that? 😬

Kindness is a kind of behaviour, a character strength of Humanity Virtue, such as love and social intelligence. It means to be nice to others without expecting anything back. 

There are many ways to express kindness. You can be generous, compassionate, nurturing, caring, thoughtful or altruistic. The kind person believes that everyone is worthy of acts of kindness. Intentionally doing favors for someone is a pleasure for them. They enjoy it and it gives them a sense of purpose. Have you heard a quote “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Act 20:35.) Maybe that is the reason. Let’s think about it from different points of views.

Have you ever been kind to random people? It is easy to be kind to our loved ones, isn’t it? How about someone who you don’t know, or someone that wasn’t kind to you before. “Oh no!!! This is nonsense!” you might say. What about when the kind action is a secret and the other person is not aware of what you have done? It makes me wonder that being kind is more than a behaviour pattern, it is a choice. Could we survive without kindness? I don’t think so.

If being kind is a choice, how about being kind to yourself? Increasing a care for yourself could provide you social advantages, like being a tough cookie, flexible, aware and more ready to live in a rude world. Accepting and loving yourself the way you love others should be practiced by everyone. For sure it would certainly make people more connected because you can’t give away what you don’t have. Let’s try to talk to ourselves as we would talk to a friend. 

On the other hand, why does our unkindness always shows up with our loved ones? Maybe I am so comfortable and right of their love, that I authorized myself to show my shadow, feeling free to be myself. Aren’t we ourselves at home? Another choice to make. 😉

Last but not least, accepting kindness also shows our humanity and social skills. It is a sense of community. Also a way to show humbleness and recognize myself as part of the whole. Accepting what I need, even though sometimes I don’t believe that I am worthy enough to get it. How complex could we be, eh?

In a nutshell, we have a lot to learn about kindness. But before we keep going on, there is homework to do. Do we really know how to express it? I challenge all readers to write an simple example of a kind behaviour! I am gonna start it!

Open the door for someone.