There are coffee shops around now that have a special wall where you can pay for a meal and hang up the receipt for a person in need. Anyone can come and take the receipt to the counter and a meal is provided for them. You hear of drive throughs where people pay for the order of the car behind them and it starts a chain reaction of generosity – each car paying for the car behind them.
Random acts of kindness – what makes them special? The person receiving the kindness feels seen and valued. But these acts of kindness often inspire others who see them to be generous too.
The definition of kindness is “the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate”.
In their post Kindness 101, the Inspire Kindness team say that kindness is more than being nice. I really like that idea.
Does she have nice eyes or kind eyes?
Just a thought
The difference is that kindness originates out of love. You can be nice and be distant at the same time. People might still observe that you’re a nice person. They don’t have to have relationship to see that you’re nice. But to know that you’re kind, they will have experienced or heard someone who experienced your kindness. Being kind is an act of the heart. It creates connection.
One of the things that I wanted to explore when I started this blog is how we show love. There is a famous quote: Love is patient, love is kind. So let’s take a look at kindness. Kindness displays love, breaks down barriers, and shows dignity.
I was part of a church many years ago that many were leaving. Most of them had good reasons for leaving but there was a bunch that left badly. When I think back on that and what made their exit so damaging was that they weren’t ‘friendly, generous and considerate’. In short, they were unkind. They spoke the truth, but not in love.
When we speak in love, our words invite and build up rather than reject and tear down. When we speak correction to a child, we can state things clearly without rejecting them and tearing them down. Perhaps you grew up in a household where correction also meant rejection and name calling. That is not kindness, nor is it love.
When we start to notice how we speak, we can choose to be kind. We can choose to show worth. When we start practising that, we start exercising our kindness muscle and it begins to strengthen.
When we choose to be kind on a regular basis, it starts to become a part of our character. Others might begin to notice that we are kind. But for that to happen, we need to value others at our core.
The way that we speak is just one aspect of kindness. I find myself surrounded by practical, generous people and I often marvel at the things that they do.
A friend of mine got frustrated a while ago at the tendency of some people to just talk and not do. She is wired to practically help others. I have known many people like this over the years. ‘Actions speak louder than words’. That can be true. If you are one of these practical people, thank you, you are a real treasure!
The thing is, assuming that kindness flows out of a heart attitude of love; if we feel compelled to act because of external pressure, it ceases to be kindness and becomes just being nice.
Kindness is a way of displaying our heart toward another.
A smile in the street, a helping hand, these things are precious. We are all human beings. We have different cultures, different languages, different resources, different styles, but we are all created to love and to be loved. Divisions are superficial. When we see each other as people of worth and show each other kindness, the barriers that we imagine to be there, fall away.
I read a beautiful description in Act here. Love now. of a woman helping other women in Calcutta and how she realised in that place that she couldn’t wear the masks that present that she has it all together. “I allowed myself to simply be a broken human being, desperately in need of giving and receiving love.”
We are all people with dreams and desires and needs. When we show kindness, we acknowledge that and build up those that receive our kindness.
When we’re being kind, it’s important to be considerate. Although we are all of value, some of us do have access to more resources than others. The being considerate part is key because when we are expressing love, we want that person to maintain their dignity.
There is a tendency when we’re doing something kind to help in a way that suits us. We are inspired with the act of kindness and so we assume that the other person will appreciate it. Sometimes though, what is really happening is that there is a power imbalance going on and we railroad over that person’s choice. The idea of paying for a meal and hanging it on the wall is great because if someone has a need and they know that it is available, they can choose to present a receipt to the cashier and they will receive a meal.
We need to be sure that if we’re helping, it’s in a way that truly values the other person. That often comes in the form of a question: ‘Can I help you with that?’
Where they say “no, thank you”, we need to respect that and allow that person the freedom to receive or not. The challenge for us here is our motivation. What ego is behind our gesture? Can we just let it go? Were we really trying to help them or were we offering help to make ourselves more comfortable with the situation?
Remember that the definition of kindness is “the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate”. To be friendly and generous without showing dignity isn’t really as kind as we thought. There is an ‘and’ in that definition, not an ‘or’. Without consideration we are just being nice.
Kindness displays love, breaks down barriers, and shows dignity. When we are kind, the other person will feel like they were invited to participate and will feel built up by the process.
It is easy to show kindness to those who we like or who are kind back. What astonishes us is when someone shows kindness to someone unexpected.
How about we look for opportunity to exercise our kindness muscle this week and see what connections we build in the process. The challenge is to look at people through eyes that see their worth and to love them just for being on this planet. Let’s go.
