Kindness is Simple…Kindness is Complicated: An Examination of Kindness as a Way of Being
Why is it easy to be kind to a child or a puppy, but we forget to be kind to a person who doesn’t know the rules of a three-way stop?
Is it because the person at the stop sign is stupid for not knowing the rules of the road?
Not challenging their level of intelligence, let’s hold onto that for one moment…
Children and puppies are constantly learning the rules of behavior, yet we have grace for them, right?
Maybe it’s easy to be kind to a child or a puppy because they are cute, helpless, and depend on help from others to survive. If we are not kind to them, we risk doing harm to their wellbeing.
What about the well-being of the driver at the three-way stop?
Let’s paint the picture and examine your response:
You are leaving a crowded parking lot and want to enter the main road to head home.
You approach a stop sign at a three-way stop. The person to your right is at their stop sign, but does not move first to make their turn so you can go.
They hesitate, look at you, tap the gas, brake, and hesitate more.
What do you say? What do you do?
In the past, I would have blared my horn, yelled an obscene name at them, and gotten really angry.
Then I would have made my turn, even though it was theirs to take, and given them a snarled look as I passed them.
But, I used to be a hothead.
What’s the consequence of my actions?
I would have held onto that anger for most of my drive home.
I would have felt a sore throat from yelling in my car.
I would have endangered myself and others by speeding through the stop sign to continue my route.
And that’s all that would have happened to me. What about the other driver?
That person may have felt embarrassed, scared, or uncertain about what to do.
My actions did not help them understand the rules of a three-way stop.
All I did was contribute violence to a small everyday situation.
You might think my use of the word “violence” is extreme, but I’m very intentional with it.
Violence is any thought, word, or action that harms yourself and/or another person.
Violence can be physical (hitting a person), mental (insulting their competence and intelligence), and/or emotional (challenging their worth and value).
All the actions in my hotheaded scenario would have led to mental and perhaps emotional violence to the other person (assuming no one was injured in my reckless driving).
But let’s take this a layer deeper.
What if I had never blared my horn or yelled?
What if all I did was hold my breath, mutter obscenities, and wait for what would have felt like forever for them to figure it out?
I would have still caused violence to myself because of the rise in my heart rate and stress levels.
Knowing how stress causes inflation which leads to higher risks of cancer, this action is not worthwhile to me.
So, how do we practice kindness for ourselves and others in annoying situations like this?
What if I practice the opposite of my habit? What if I practice patience and compassion?
Let’s explore the situation again:
I’m at a three-way stop in a crowded parking lot, waiting to make my turn so I can get on the main road and head home.
A driver to my right stops at their stop and hesitates.
My habit is to yell and blare my horn—STOP! I make the choice instead of noticing.
Is this person okay, or does this person need medical attention?
Is this person on their phone and distracted?
Is this person looking at me clearly expecting me to go first, not knowing it’s their right to go first?
The two seconds it takes to notice is the practice of patience.
In these two seconds, I give the driver the benefit of the doubt, and it keeps my head and heart cool.
Depending on what I notice, I can act accordingly:
Maybe I go to them if they need help and call for it.
Maybe I tap my horn to get their attention and then gesture for them to make their turn.
Maybe I smile and gesture, telling them it’s their right of way.
Whatever my choice, I have added value to the moment and not taken from it in acts of violence towards myself and others.
And, yes, sometimes the person we practice kindness for is clearly not paying attention to their surroundings and is even acting selfish.
If this is the case, be indifferent.
Get on with your day and pray they get some good sense to practice kindness for others.
In doing so, you keep your head and your heart clear and prevent yourself from getting toxic over their misdeeds.
As the Yoga Sutras, the ancient treatise of yoga teaches in verse 1.33: “Through the cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice respectively, the consciousness becomes favorably disposed, serene, and benevolent” (trans. BKS Iyengar, The Yoga Sutras).
Mr. Iyengar summarizes this teaching: “Rejoice with the happy, be compassionate with the sorrowful, be friendly to the virtuous, and be indifferent to those who continue to live in vide despite attempts to change them.”
This is the path to wellness and clarity of mind, heart, and soul.
This path is paved with kindness.
Kindness is simple to practice. But, it has its complications.
We have to unshackle ourselves from the yoke of our habits and poor expectations of others.
We must practice an open mind and heart—they do not happen overnight.
The best path to this way of being is through curiosity.
What if you were curious about human behavior, including your own?
What if the greatest key to kindness is curiosity, which opens your mind to many ways of solving problems?
How much more interesting would your life be as you experience it with a full heart?