Kindness Is A Gift Worth Sharing
Kindness is a value that many of us continue to believe in. It is the language of respect and consideration, it is the cushion that cushions the onslaught of life and that gift that we offer through looks, words and with the little acts of everyday life. Being nice doesn’t cost anything, and yet it goes a long way.
Lao Tzu used to say in his texts that kind words create trust, that noble thoughts create kindness and that acts marked by respect, weave an indestructible bond. However, in many of our closest environments we do not see this value as ingrained or as present as we would like.
Are we kind?
Experts in leadership and organizational psychology, for example, know that kindness or altruism are not concepts that harmonize very much with those dimensions that seem to guarantee that a company is well positioned in the market. Competitiveness, power, influence or innovation are above that little useful fraternity where recognizing the other would imply losing status, time and effectiveness.
On the other hand, and according to Félix Losada, director of Marketing and Institutional Relations and author of the book Intelligent Protocol , if we are less friendly it is due to a very specific fact. Social courtesy evolves, and in our case it has done so based on a context marked by haste, stress and consumerism, where the person is more focused on their own selfish universes than on looking out towards their nearby planets.
Are we living in the age of antipathy?
In our present, there is no shortage of those who believe that being kind is wasting time or running the risk of being taken for weak, or for interested parties. In business, for example, the colleague who is helpful, friendly, and approachable is viewed with distrust. Because most likely, of course , is that he is a “climber”, who seeks with his behavior to move up and win an armchair.
Kindness, in turn, is not a useful dimension in management areas either. As much as they “sell” us that today’s managers are trained in Emotional Intelligence and in fine-tuned group dynamics, all they want is for employees to meet the objectives, and for the organization to be competitive in an ever-changing and oppressive market.
We live in the culture of ” I do enough for what I get paid .” In this world marked by “ME” and “NOW” there is hardly time to look into each other’s eyes, for a “good morning, how’s everything?” or for a “do you need something?” … It is no longer possible to sit face to face, beyond the schedules and pressures to cultivate more positive relationships and to create a climate of understanding and collaboration where we would all win.
In this era of antipathy and immediacy, kindness translates into loss of time, 8% less profit in the company or in running the risk of missing something important in our social networks if we turn off the mobile while we are with a friend or partner. It’s really worth it?
We cannot forget that when a baby arrives in the world, it is “programmed” to connect with others. In fact, up to 7 or 8 years a child is altruistic and collaborative by nature. After this stage, they begin to focus much more on themselves and develop behaviors based on competitiveness.
If we invest time in them to educate them on the value of kindness from these very early times, we will be sowing the seeds of a nobler, more empathetic future. Let us initiate them in the verbal and gestural courtesy, while we ourselves also rehabilitate the concept of kindness in our day to day.
Let’s recover the codes of civility, let’s raise our faces from the screens of our mobiles to attend to each other through our eyes, where the authentic notifications appear, those that come from the soul and the heart.
Let’s start today to frown less, put the brakes on our rush and savor life in small bites while giving smiles, while spending more time with the people we love. Because being nice is free and, believe it or not, it feels really good.
Images courtesy Sara Biernam
