Kindness
If I tell you that kindness should be a default currency when engaging with people, you will certainly agree. If you think that by default you should show some sort of distance or toughness to get people’s respect, please unsubscribe :)
If we think about the downside of kindness, it’s pretty simple. Some people will use it against you to simply get advantage of a situation. but most of the time they won’t. It’s also a great marker to know pretty quickly whether you should trust someone or not.
Kindness is magic attribute that one gives and receives. When kindness gets perceived and received, it usually leads to a response in adequation with it whether it’s gratitude or more. And honestly I don’t see how anyone could argue against the greatness of that feeling.
let me give you a short typical example from today… I was ordering something to take away this afternoon in a busy but really good Armenian backery. A family had ordered their food and was waiting inside for a table to become available outside. Shortly after they could finally sat outside, they were served. Someone, visibly irritated, came inside the restaurant to complain about the fact that they were still waiting for their order and that they had arrived before this family who was already served. The waiter, politely, asked for their name and told them that the family had arrived before them and that two orders were still to be served before them. Annoyed, she went back outside, pissed off even though there was nothing to complain about except for the delay. But honestly, you could see that the place was packed and delay was to be expected. It’s sunday afternoon, it’s sunny, and by complaining and being irritated, this person just screwed her afternoon. She could have expressed her frustration of course, but it didn’t have to come with rudeness, and It would have cost nothing to ask politely when they were supposed to be served. She could have asked for a drink, wait and then really enjoy a long awaited meal :)
Kindness comes in so many form. It’s in the tone of your voice, in your writing style, it can be a gesture, a smile, an apology, a punctuation, a text, a call, an intention. And even when people are not responding well or are a bit irritating, annoying, hard to catch or understand, it shouldn’t be a reason to go off that ground. Kindness is not only a default state, it’s an always state. It’s something you keep pushing always, and like any good habit, it grows on you.
Kindness triggers kindness of course, but also trust, motivation, dedication. It obviously doesn’t always work that way and sometimes we don’t get the expected results or get disappointed by people who screw us over or don’t return the intention, but it shouldn’t be a reason to become frustrated, angry or resentful.
Kindness doesn’t mean that you can’t be honest, direct, sometimes a bit brutal with someone, as long as you learn to express it correctly, that it shows how much you care, if people understand how that feedback is derived from your willingness to really help them.
Kindness doesn’t mean that you should trust everyone, that you shouldn’t be cautious. Kindness is a value that we share, not an absolute thing that we grant to everyone no matter what.
Kindness is a favor to yourself, it makes you happy, it makes people around you happy, as it grows on you it becomes an attribute that defines you and even if sometimes it doesn’t serve you, most of the time it will.
Trust yourself in being kind to others.