Being Kind

Kindness, a lost art

At work, management recently re-emphasized that kindness must be the foundation of everything we do. Not efficiency alone, nor only ambition, but kindness. It struck me how rare it feels to hear something so simple, yet so powerful, spoken with seriousness in a professional setting.

As it always does, my phone heard this, and I got a reel on my feed about kindness. It said that being kind to those closest to us, to our family and loved ones, is the truest display of character. It is easy to perform kindness in public, where it is seen and appreciated. It is harder, and far more meaningful, to practice it consistently at home, in the ordinary, unguarded moments of life.

And then there is the self. When I look inward, I notice that it is much easier to criticize myself than to offer myself kindness. Self-compassion does not come naturally; self-critique does. Yet perhaps true kindness must begin there, in the quiet way we speak to ourselves.

I remember “Morals” as a subject in school. It taught us basic principles of right and wrong, kindness, honesty etc without attaching them to any religious lens. It was simple, human, and grounding. I often feel we need something like that again, a shared reminder of fundamental values, not as stringent rules, but as practice.

Today, I find myself uneasy with the propagandist cinema and art that surround me. So much of it amplifies division and anger. I long for art that gently reminds us to be kind to everyone, without exception. Art that softens rather than hardens us. This is my small attempt to contribute to that reminder. To say that kindness is not naive, only a neglected value, waiting to be practiced again.

So what does it really mean to be kind? It perhaps means extending kindness to co-workers, regardless of hierarchy or corporate labels. It perhaps means choosing gentleness with family and loved ones, especially when we are both at our absolute worst. And it means refusing to entertain those 3 a.m. thoughts that replay an old mistake or a careless word from years ago, denying them the power to define you.

Let us revive this simple art. Let us practice it deliberately and quietly. If we can make the small world around us, even just the spaces we inhabit each day, a little better, a little kinder, that may be enough, for now.