Genuinely kind people don't get enough credit. People seem to think that being nice is just a personality trait, but it's actually a commitment to treat people well, even when it's hard. It's not just being nice to the people you like.
It's choosing to be kind to people when you're in a bad mood, or when they're being annoying.
It's choosing to be kind to people who your friends don't like.
It's choosing to be kind to people who you don't particularly like.
It's choosing to be kind to people who you envy.
I'm not saying that you can't be a kind person and stand up for yourself, or tell someone to fuck off when they're doing something genuinely harmful, but there are a million petty reasons people use to justify treating people badly.
It is a conscious choice, made over and over, often several times a day, to treat people with kindness and respect, even when they make it hard. So appreciate the consistently kind people in your life, because they work hard to be that way, and they really don't have to.
Something that comes up when I discuss kindness with people is that people who I experience as being kind believe that they're just faking it. They don't believe it counts if you're kind to someone who you're secretly annoyed by.
But that's exactly what kindness is. It's making the effort to treat people well when you don't feel like it.
If anything it should count MORE when it's not effortless.
#ohhhhhh being kind is like being brave ie bravery is not the absence of fear it is acting in spite of it (via pinkpuffballdude)
genuine question: If you're kind to people because it is the "right" thing to do and it makes people like you, are you actually kind? Or are you just manipulating people into liking you? (asking for a friend)
You are not the only person to wonder, and perhaps it will help to think of it this way:
Say you are someone who actually doesn't like people and wants to manipulate them, just to be evil. For the sake of your evil scheme, you consistently treat people well and do the right thing (even though this sometimes takes a lot of self-control and not putting your own feelings first), so that people will be manipulated into liking you. Then you are (silently, inside your own head, mind you) like "haha, sucker! Gotcha!"
Then you carry on with your evil scheme of treating people well and doing the right thing, often at your own inconvenience.
That's pretty reprehensible, right? Pretty devious. Just vile, villainous shit. I mean, it might be if you were building up trust to take advantage of people... but are you actually doing that? Or do people just like you because you treat them well?
I think the idea that anything that benefits you is self-serving and therefore bad is pretty wack, tbh. Why shouldn't you also benefit from doing the right thing? Why does it only count if you're martyring yourself for it? Not to mention, there are a lot of times when being kind means putting other people first.
So yeah, my take is that kindness is kindness, assuming you're not playing some long game of deliberately building up trust in order to hurt people later. I hope this helps!
This does really help. Thank you for taking the time to write this up.
I hope it helps others who feel the same.
