Kindness Should be as Normal as Breathing
You do not need permission to be kind
Do you remember the last time you were kind to someone, voluntarily, without feeling that you had to show kindness? You will now close your eyes and try to think about the last time when you went out of your way to display an act of kindness. Was it when you asked the elderly gentleman to sit in the seat, no, that was not you, it was someone else who offered her seat on the bus yesterday. Could it be the time when you helped a mother and her three young children cross a busy street, no that was also not you, but a young man, who helped her cross that busy street last month.
You will find that over the past weeks, months and years, you have not made a conscious effort to be kind to someone, anyone, for that matter. It has always been about you, your life, your work, your friends and your family. Nothing and no one outside that circle mattered to you in life. The world around you and all the people you walk past on the street, do not exist to you and your life. You feel that the rest of the world and the people are just actors and props who have their functions, in which you do not need to participate. In other words, the rest of humanity, in your opinion is not part of your human experience.
You are wrong, my good friend. Every human being, every plant, every animal is an essential part of your human experience and an integral part of it. Imagine your life, without the rest of humanity, plants, animals, birds and creatures, it would be so empty. Your mind and soul would feel desolate. Always remember that you are part of the same fabric of cosmic existence.
Show kindness in small ways, they do not have to be magnanimous gestures, like giving money to help a cause, building a home for the elderly, sponsoring a child in a developing country or offering shelter to a homeless person. Acts of kindness can be the simple things that make life so precious and meaningful, like making someone a cup of tea, buying a sandwich for a co-worker, who has just rushed in late, or asking someone a known or unknown person you met, if they are okay, or helping someone who is struggling to carry their shopping or clearing up a table in a restaurant, when it is busy and the workers are struggling to cope. It is always the simple little things, like a “thank you” or offering a compliment to someone, like a job well done, even if they are strangers, like window cleaners, or the newspaper vendor who sits at his stall from morning to night, waiting for people to buy his magazines.
You do not need permission to be kind. You should not have to remember the last time that you were kind to someone. Kindness needs to be shown to someone, anyone, friends, family or strangers every day of your life. Be kind because being kind should be as normal as breathing. You do not need to think about every breath that you breathe, it comes naturally, to you since, the day you were born, and so should kindness and love for every human being on the planet. I am not telling you to become a saint with a halo shining above your head, but a kind human being, who is capable of being kind to every other human being in this world, as we live this exciting human experience while making it a rewarding existence for our human souls.
Writer’s Note: This article was inspired by a conversation with a good writing friend and an excellent writer, DR Rawson - The Possibilist, @writerrawson
Fantastic and powerful message!