i know kindness exists because i am kind
“people aren’t good”
i am people. i am good
you are wrong
if you are capable of it then so are others
be your own proof of concept
to everyone who’s responded to this post with “people are terrible” and “people who call themselves good are bad” and “everyone i’ve ever met is awful”
this post is for you specifically
i know we all hate reading comprehension on tumblr dot hell, but this post is not about other people. it’s not about the people who have hurt you, or saved you, or the ones you’ve met or those who you’ve invented in your head
this post is about you
if you cannot find evidence of the goodness around you, if you are jaded and your existence is miserable and you truly believe no one has ever showed you kindness, then this post is for and about you
you can’t control the actions of other people. you can’t make people show you kindness in the ways you want to receive it. if you look for proof of your version of kindness in the people who surround you, and can’t find it, you can decide it doesn’t exist
or you can be your own proof of concept
you are not special
there are at least hundreds of thousands of people who are just like you
so if you can choose to show others kindness - if you can bite back your temper and hold the door open for others and overtip and compliment strangers - then that is proof that hundreds of thousands of people, who are just like you, are capable of doing the same and likely are doing the same
i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again
the simplest way to increase the number of kind people in the world is to be one
I know this is a bit of a sidetrack, but: when we look back at our own history through the fossil record, some of the earliest examples of modern human behaviour we find is kindness.
There are fossils with injuries so grievous, disabilities so severe, that they would simply never be able to fend for themselves. And yet their bones show that they lived, that they survived. That one of the oldest recognisable human traits is that in times of hardship, we look after each other. We care for one another.
Now sure, we are capable of utterly horrific acts - our history has no shortage of those. But, it is altruism that made us able to spread as far and wide as we have - that have allowed us to survive and even thrive in places that are utterly hostile to us.
Sometimes it’s nice to remember that.
