Kindness

Kindness means that we recognize that others are fragile--that we have the power to hurt or heal them--and we choose to be healers. When we are kind, we don't take advantage of our power or of other people's vulnerabilities. Instead, we seek to comfort, encourage and strengthen those around us.

To be kind requires empathy: we must consciously attune ourselves to the life experience of another being to know what will feel good for them. Kindness builds confidence, because it lets us see others in all of their complicated, needy humanity, rather than putting them on pedestals.

Kindness does not ask whether it will be repaid. Even so, our kindness often ripples through the world around us; it invites others to be kind in turn.