Kindness in action

By Oscar E.V. Fernando

Kindness is essentially a quality of being friendly, generous and considerate; it may also be shown as affection, gentleness, warmth, concern and care. All these are characteristics that one individual can demonstrate to another, and are significantly derivatives of love. What really is the meaning of love, very much in use and abuse in society?

We say that a couple is in love, but with a little pause we know that most of these couples do hypnotise each other and live in a world of make believe before marriage and when they have to tackle problems that need sacrifice, this love flies through the window and the world of make believe they had earlier crashes and tumbles.

If kindness is a derivation of love, then obviously it requires sacrifice before it is extended to another; also loving another implies that we must love ourselves to love another – an admonishment we have heard – to love thy neighbour as thy self. Does it not follow that firstly you must have a measure of kindness within and, for you to, outpour it to another?

It is the general perception that a kind person must have a pleasant disposition and a concern for others – not seen in persons afflicted with additions and have enmities towards the world and so hate themselves.

People who are kind and loving do not hesitate to help those in need of help, as over their years of formation they have picked up essentials of kindness and the thought of helping another comes naturally to them – they do not feel apathetic to make the necessary sacrifice to help.

Being kind needs courage, strength and sacrifice to go out of the way to bring a smile to another’s face – to give up that afternoon nap to inquire into the crying of a helpless child, to pet that kitten meowing at your doorstep for some food: the list is unlimited in this selfish world reeling away to get the best for oneself and seek only one’s comfort and ease.

Kindness is a voluntary use of one’s time, talent and resources to better the lives of others – like helping a person in need to be hospitalised after a vehicle accident and is left on the roadside to bleed away: this needs perhaps postponing your luncheon appointment to come to his need and also perhaps the prospect of cleaning up the car upholstery: a person with no awareness of kind behaviour will never stop and make a sacrifice for that bleeding stranger and walk with him that extra mile.

This is what the Noble Peace Prize Winner Albert Schweitzer says in his book ‘Reverence for Life’: Everyone must work to live, but the purpose of life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others. Only then do we ourselves become true human beings.

As the concept of kindness in practice is very wide, this writer will make a pause to continue thereafter with a series of missives covering kindness sympathy empathy, tenderness in the family, classroom, society and later in business life – leaving a thought with the reader to ponder as to what the purpose of life is, if it is not to fill that void within with kindness, love, concern for one’s own neighbour.

Albert Schweitzer’s quote spelled out a few rudiments of kindness that makes the world a better place to live in – as kindness is inherent in all beings; in humans it may be said to be a rational kindness as opposed to animals, which however is a subject that invites debate: apart from debating, kindness in action is a matter very close to the hearts of those that live by the moral admonishment that man is made in the image and likeness of the creator – who is eternal love!

All of us commence life in our mother’s embrace, cradled with the milk of human kindness. The child feels its warmth and grows with it and lives with it unless and until someone or something intrudes into this sac of human kindness. Those who step into the world from this cradle of kindness has it in them to pour it out to others. Those others need society’s attention to bring them back to this kind way of living; if they have not experienced this kindness they may grow up in wickedness.

In both cases kindness is naturally adopted by an infant like a duck taking to water and those deprived of this kindness will adopt the opposite.

Can we not therefore say that the world needs kindness in action, words and in thought? Can we also not say that what we see is a chaotic world around us – sans love and kindness – what with world wars one and two, with another on the brink?

With love and kindness, and no wars, truly we can sing ‘let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me’ and that me is moulded by you and me!

Let us begin with the infant that blossoms into manhood. Can we not say that the infant cradled in the sac within the mother’s womb responds to kindness or wickedness of the mother or some other? Does it not respond differently to soothing as opposed to jarring music it hears?

Suffice to say here that this writer had seen a video clip where the sac in which the unborn baby cradled in the womb, receding to escape from the oncoming forceps that unkindly approaches to crush it and that is unkindness as opposed to kindness and love-contrasting an act of brutality as against unkindness.

So it is that an infant cradled in a mother’s arms and breast grows up to be the child that attends school. It is here that the child picks up acts of kindness as guided by teachers: periods of kindness in action must be included into the curriculum of learning – as much as any other subject; dramas, concerts and displays of kindness must be inculcated to attract attention of students in keeping with displays of competitiveness such as sports meets. A clear example being applauding those straggling behind in an athletic race, so that a sense of inclusiveness of all that took part in the race is felt – it is an act of kindness to boost up another from a sense of loss.

These further acts of kindness can be included in the period of a school’s curriculum: hold the door open for another, do some chore for someone in anonymity, crack a joke to dispel the bad mood of another, return someone’s cart at a store, feed the birds, show up on time, compliment others, strike up a conversation with a person who seems dejected.

From school the adult walks into the harsh world, made harsh due to several reasons, one of which is the competitive race to do one better than the other: though ambition is needed to make the world go round, it is here that the adult must cautiously use his training in kindness.

The workplace will show ample opportunity to demonstrate kindness. A company leader may be affectionately considerate to his subordinate who in turn will make a ripple effect on his subordinates and so it is that kindness comes into the commercial world to increase profits of the business, instead of setting about it in a harsh manner: these are thoughts of Robert K Greenleaf in his essay on ‘Servant Leadership’.

Curiously it is strikingly observed that this kind approach was evident in ancient teachings of the Orient such as Old and New Testament Bible, Lao Tsu and Confucius of China and Buddha in the Indian region. The Bible in the Old Testament which is as old as the hills speaks of love and kindness in the Psalms and other passages and Christ who came to fulfil the Old Testament Quoted-Love thy neighbour as thyself. It is very clear in the quote that to be loving and kind to another, one must initially love himself, and this happens when the infant’s innate love and kindness is first cuddled by the mother.

This moral edifice of kindness that lied buried as rubble under modern edifices of the new found commercial concepts of the new world, in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, is now dusted and packaged into new theories by modern writers, very much worth the reading to know how to be positively kind. 

(The writer is an accountant by profession, was Director Finance – Sri Lanka Foundation, Human Rights Commission, Television Training Institute, Member Board of Management SLF, Human Rights Task Force. Retired in 1969 and thereafter earned an Honours Diploma in Journalism from the London School of Journalism. Now an octogenarian plus.)