Kindness — A Healing Habit
Let it out!
Tak C. Poon, MD
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Kindness is a natural instinct and a feel-good sensation that has helped preserve humankind through eons of adverse conditions. In today’s increasingly hostile world, we must leverage kindness as a survival advantage.
Some people may dismiss kindness offhand as a doomed weakness, as if it’s a bad habit or at least an awkward inconvenience. That has brought too many of us to where we are in this world today—unhappy with ourselves and at war with one another.
Kindness is costly sometimes. Yet, it is soul-soothing always, and well worth the price.
It isn’t kindness if it causes you nothing. It takes walking in another’s worn-out shoes and then buying them new ones with your last dollars. The only question is whether the receiver’s need outweighs your pain.
You might deem your sacrifice a bit too much. Or people don’t appreciate or reciprocate. Or they may even take it the wrong way. Don’t hold back. Once you add in the “if, and, but, here-to-for, in the event, not to exceed, quit pro quo, yada-yada....” it becomes unkind and will backfire.
If you bargain for a reward, then it’s only a transaction. If you expect an unpromised gain in return, then it’s a gamble. Kindness involves no such risks. The gratification is instant, inevitable, and internal. And that should be it.
Kindness requires wisdom. Otherwise, a foolish bleeding heart might make things worse. Look into any life ruined since childhood by over-spoiling parents. The toughest demand from kindness is the wisdom to know whether it will end up helping or harming the recipient. It begins by doing it purely for their benefit and not for feeling good about yourself.
Genuine kindness already rewards you immediately and deeply inside while you are extending it. The beneficiaries may not need to know about it. And when it is better that they don’t know, your silent gratification multiplies. Ask any parent.
When you are kind, you are worthy of other people’s trust and affection. You don’t earn that even if you are smart and accomplished. It’s from the heart, not the brain.
In our increasingly hostile and distrusting world, where selfishness and “identity-ism” are breaking us apart, kindness may be one potent antidote we can all administer to one another. Small and random acts of kindness, especially to strangers, work particularly well. Or even just a kind word in passing can work wonders.
Simply let the kindness in your heart guide you how to extend it for others’ benefit. Trust it is always the right time to do the right thing. Once it becomes a habit, you won’t even have to try. Once it becomes a “viral” habit, humanity may have a chance.
The kindness in you is eager to be let out. Freeing it is a powerful healing habit that is highly contagious. Kindness is the source of all virtues. Our survival depends on it.
Extraordinary Living by Ordinary Means 2024