Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care
and kindness of our parents. And then later on in our life,
when we are oppressed by sickness and become old, we are
again dependent on the kindness of others. And since at
the beginning and end of our lives, we are so dependent
on others' kindness, how can it be in the middle
that we neglect kindness towards others?
the Dalai LamaWe see and feel a whole lot of negative energy in the world today--so much so that it's practically overwhelming. I often find myself thinking that with so much hatred and anger and malice and prejudice constantly being shown right before our eyes, how can we possibly do anything in our own small ways that will make any sort of difference? And when that happens to me, I remind myself that my responsibility isn't to change the world--it's to affect in positive ways the worlds that I live in--the world of my family, the world of my friends, the world of my workplace. And in that world, I can contribute to the positive energy very simply by being kind. If someone angers me, I can show patience and kindness; if someone is feeling down, I can give encouraging words; if someone has a particular need, I can meet that need, or teach that someone how to meet that need themselves; if someone's feeling lonely or isolated, I can give them a small and simple gift--even a simple candy bar can be a wonderful gift. There are many, many ways that I can be kind, many ways that I can contribute to the positive energy of this world we live in.
My kindness, of course, isn't going to fix the world. It isn't going to cause authoritarian regimes to crumble, and it isn't going to fix the lives of families that have been terribly harmed by unfair and uncalled-for detentions of loved ones. It isn't going to restore the jobs of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been fired this year for no good reason. But we have to start somewhere, and in my heart I know that if there's any good place to start adding to the positive energy of the world, then kindness just may be it. And if we spread our modest kindness with love in our hearts, then we're also adding the positive energy of love as well. And we can definitely hope that our kindness will be passed on, which will make things even better.
It's easy to feel overwhelmed, to feel that what we do means nothing. But kindness never means nothing, and in today's world, our attempts to keep kindness from going extinct can only help the world, no matter how modest our efforts may seem to us.
I'm going to try to be extra kind today. It's not always easy for me to do because I teach at a high school and some of the young people there do some really crappy things, but for today I'm going to try to focus on kindness no matter what. I try to do this as much as I can, anyway, but I so often get distracted from the goal that I forget kindness and focus on whatever I get caught up in, whatever it may be. I can be kind in many ways--I can share kind words, I can give small gifts (chocolate comes to mind), I can help someone with some task that they need help with, I can clean up a mess that needs to be cleaned, I can simply be there for someone who needs someone else to listen. Being kind doesn't mean that I have to spend tons of money or that I have to go far out of my way to do something that I'm uncomfortable doing. It doesn't mean that I have to be friends with someone whom I find to be very unpleasant or rude. It doesn't mean that I have to do anything that I think is wrong. It simply means that I need to be kind instead of impatient, kind instead of neutral, kind instead of aloof. It really is fairly easy to be kind--the hard part for me is reminding myself constantly that my main goal should be kindness if I really do want to be contributing something positive to this world of ours.
It really surprises me sometimes when I think about kindness and I realize just how little I actually try to be kind, just how little I make kindness my highest priority. Often, I admit, I don't have to think about it much. I've tried to make it my default way of acting, but sometimes I seem to get sidetracked and I forget all about kindness when I'm more focused on defensiveness or a feeling of a need for control or simply feeling overwhelmed or tired or even hungry. It's not so difficult to be kind, though, is it? It's something that we all can accomplish if we want to, and something that benefits not just the people we're kind to, but ourselves as well. The kind word or action can even start a ripple that spreads out and affects more people than those with whom we have direct contact; one of the beauties of kindness is the fact that it does spread, and that we never know just how far our individual kindness reaches. I'd like to be better at being kind--more focused on being kind and trying to be kind to others--and I'm constantly trying to improve when I actually think about it. Of course, some kindnesses are in disguise--I think I'm kinder to my students when I hold them to standards and don't pass something that should be failing--but even so, they are kindnesses. One day I hope to live a life of kindness every day, and I hope that it doesn't take me too long to get there.
