Kindness

"Do not act meanly, do not be unkind, because the time for setting things right may pass before your heart changes course". Alexander McCall Smith.

It sounds so easy, just to be kind. But it really isn't simple at all. I wish I was better at it. How to be kind to people who aren't kind to you? What about if being kind puts you out in some way? Or what if you think you are being kind, but the recipient doesn't want your kindness?

The best way I can look at it is from the point of view of being a recipient of kindness, which I have, many times, over the last few years. I am deeply grateful to the people who have helped me in ways big and small. People who have anticipated my need and therefore had me in the forefront of their minds, people who have put themselves out to help me & comfort me. It isn't always necessary to sympathise with another, sympathy can be quite hard to deal with. But it is necessary to really try to empathise, to be able to put yourself in anothers position & try to understand how they might feel. People who can do that are a blessing.

There are people who are unkind, some deliberately. Mean spiritedness is not uncommon, but those people are reflecting something about themselves. Perhaps we should try to understand why someone is behaving unkindly, although we may not know them well enough to know what in their past has made them the person they are. Simplistically I tend to think that genuinely nice people are by an large happier. Bad actions have the reverse effect I think.

We all have a tendency to judge others, often as a knee jerk response. Perhaps if we could only genuinely try to be kind to others, those we actually come into contact with & those that we hear about, we might be a less disfunctional & insular society. All it takes is for each of us to really try and be aware when we are not being kind. There is a lot to put right in our society today, but it is possible through generosity & kind action.