Kindness is in all of us. We need more of it in the world today. When I observe fans at sporting events combined social trolls spewing garbage content at everyone from public health officials to women of colour who have opinions/talents, I notice a deficit in kindness. As I reflect on the fact that my city is the global epicentre of anti-Asian hate, I wonder why human beings are treating each other so inhumanely.
The thing about kindness is that it is a catalytic force for good things in the world. It boosts social chemistry and improves our mental and physical health. The science is clear that folks who help others and give their community time, energy, and access to relationships benefit personally from giving without expecting anything in return. Kindness is a skill we can build and share with the world.
What are you sharing with the world? How do you respond when people ask you for help? How are you giving without asking for anything in return? How are you using kindness to broker new relationships? What is kind about how you give feedback to help people get better?
From my point of view, there is more kindness in the world than we hear and see. The challenge is that, for humans, bad is stronger than good – this fact is an evolutionary feature that passed along to all the people whose ancestors were really good at running away from saber tooth tigers. The badness of a saber tooth tigers and a global pandemic or a player stepping on a treasured sports team logo ain’t the same thing, though, even if our brain’s hardwiring and our unconscious biases might think so. People have a bias for safety and, often times, being kind isn’t the safe thing to do because kindness requires empathy, directness, and vulnerability, which are very real and hard skills to build and use. It’s harder to tell someone they have food in their teeth then it is to smile and move on with your day (it’s kinder for us to help folks to not have broccoli in their teeth).
For healthy networks and collaborative communities, the world needs kindness.
How will you make it contagious in your world today?