I’ve been a rigid follower of kindness. I’ve tried to mold it into my personality and my everyday living, so much so that I’ve found myself surrounded with people who follow the same principles as I do.
Yet, somehow I’ve noticed that despite our compassionate response to most things around us – sometimes, mind you – SOMETIMES – we do slip up and end up saying something unkind. Although we might not avidly support that unkind thought or comment, we do say it in the heat of the moment and end up regretting it instantaneously. Irrespective of the motive leading up to that, we need to realise our comments, though unkind, do not define us or our personal beliefs.
In these moments we gain a sense of perspective – when we realise the true meaning of kindness. I’ve always lauded myself to be a kindness punk – someone who would prefer to say something good or positive instead of saying something bad or negative.
I surprisingly found myself in a juxtaposition. When my relationship ended during the pandemic, I found myself lost, without hope, trying to grapple with my unkind self. I ended up sending messages to ex which were meant to evoke a response – to get under his skin – to make him feel that remorse.
And to see my hypocritical self do that to a person I so dearly cared about, brought about a wave of reflection within me. A person who applauded my every – smile, kind word, and compliment – was the very same who bore the brunt of a scorned lover.
In this, I realised that we all foster an unkind version of ourselves. Hidden behind all the love is an unpleasant, disagreeable, and mean-spirited person wrapped in pain and agony which we enjoy keeping on a tight leash.
This lewd identity ends up seeing the time of day when we don’t have the energy to nurture it with our kindness and let me be honest, it happens more often than we’d like.
But we are still trying. We are trying to penetrate every austere part of that shrewd personality and are trying to instigate a kinder version of ourselves.
So whenever you have that momentary lapse in judgement and end up saying something which might not exactly ally with your beliefs, you know what to do – take a deep breath and reassess, apologise and diffuse the situation without hurting the person in front of you because they don’t deserve it.
Forgive that unkind self and let it go. Fostering that negativity brimming over the edge will only end up exhausting your potential to make a change. Think before you speak and try to control the quick quip on your tongue. If you show love to your unkind self, automatically the people in your surrounding too will be able to grip the leash on their unkind personality and will prevent an ego clash.
And that’s where the matter lies – sometimes one needs to be unkind to be kind.
