Your hidden superpower can change lives!

Henry James, the novelist, when asked by his nephew for advice on how to spend his life, responded: “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”

Kindness can be a difficult thing to define, but we all recognise it when we see it:

Someone going out of their way a little bit to give us a lift, or really listening to when we’re struggling, or asking “are you ok?” and then being prepared to spend the time necessary to hear the answer when we’re out of sorts or distressed.

Sometimes, we might feel reluctant to be kind ourselves, because it involves taking a bit of a risk.  After all, we might end up looking a bit silly - or maybe we’ll even provoke a hostile reaction.  

But trying any sort of an icebreaker to get someone to talk, if they look at their wits end, could just save a life.  The Samaritans in the UK are a charity aiming to reduce suicide.  They have an approach in their training manual which simply involves asking “is there anywhere around here to get a coffee?” when encountering someone ill at ease at a railway station.

Thankfully, we’re not often witness to a person contemplating jumping under a train.  It is impossible, though, to know what’s going on in someone else’s head.  If their behaviour is odd, well maybe that’s just their way.  Or - maybe they really aren’t coping.  As long as we approach with a gentle manner and a simple question, we’re unlikely to make things worse.  And if we’ve completely misinterpreted the situation, it is easy enough to apologise for disturbing them and to back off.

It is hard to be kind when we’re in pain, or angry, or feeling hard done to.  But acknowledging our own pain then putting it to one side allows us to be kind anyway.  Sometimes, concentrating on another person’s situation is a useful distraction from our own inner demons. Regardless - it’s so worth it!  Not just to the person whose life is eased by our act of kindness, but indirectly, we too can benefit.

Neuroimagery has shown that the warm glow of kindness is a very real thing.  The reward areas of the brain light up more for genuine acts of altruism than for strategic kindness (where the subject might expect to be rewarded in some way). So our brains recognise something uniquely satisfying about being altruistic.[1]

We humans have a primitive brain (the brain stem and limbic system) which has no concept of any difference between internal thoughts and external actions.  Its processing of signals when we show kindness towards others, is perceived by the “old” brain in the same way as kindness directed to ourselves.  Being kind to others, therefore, provides our unconscious mind with loving messages which can aid healing of our own deep-rooted inner pain.

The other thing that seems self evident about kindness is that it is contagious.  “One good turn deserves another” is a common enough saying, but often tends to imply that the recipient of goodwill returns the favour to the originator … perhaps a better way to show true kindness is the concept of “paying it forward” where a person uninvolved in the initial incident gains some benefit from the kindness of the original recipient of a good deed.

This is what makes the contagion of kindness more far reaching than other human behaviours - like smiling, yawning or laughing.  Anger is, unfortunately, very contagious too.  But most contagious behaviours tend only to have an effect in the immediate surroundings.  Kindness is a behaviour whose contagion can spread far and wide.

Major acts of kindness can resonate in a different country, or even a generation later, when people feel inspired to honour the kindness that had once been shown to them, or even to their forebears.

At its simplest, a kind deed might be no more than a smile of encouragement when someone appears hesitant to ask a question, some appropriate words of advice, or even just appreciation for a job well done.  

We often remember acts of kindness as part of a eulogy - because the most significant acts of kindness are frequently unknown to anyone other than the recipient.  Genuine kindness is not intended to draw attention or gratitude or fame.  It’s easy to tell if something that you’re contemplating comes from a place of kindness, or has an ulterior motive:  

Being kind means that you’re not looking to “profit” in any way from the situation.  You aren’t offering to help push someone’s broken down car because you’re hoping they might offer to buy you a beer  - your motivation is simply to help - and comes from knowing that if say, your sister was in that situation, you’d appreciate it if someone else came to their aid.

If you make kindness your default attitude, you’ll soon realise just how much kindness there is already circulating around the world.  If you go ahead and chip in with your little contribution, you can rest assured that the butterfly effect will greatly magnify your efforts - and someone, somewhere, will feel the benefit, perhaps years from now.  

Mother Teresa encouraged us to “be kind and gentle even under provocation” and explained that “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” 

Reference: 

1.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811918307936