Kindness

When I returned from my stay in US,  I brought back in my luggage a few habits.  One of them was to say thank you .  My colleagues laughed at me and many in my family scolded me for it.  While we have beautiful words as “dhanyabad” and “shukriya” in our languages,  somehow in our culture, we feel by saying thank you we demean the giver.  Some have even told me,  “I don’t want to lessen your worth by saying thank you”.  Over time, I curbed my habit of saying it often, especially with close ones.   

I have now resumed it.  And I am much happier for it. 

In these days of pandemic , we spend our days and weeks and months online.  We don’t have the chance to meet our friends, dine out or have a party. We are connected with the world however, busy with our zoom calls, online shopping, binging on Netflix and filling our drives with new learning certificates. 

What is slowly ebbing from our lives, is kindness. 

Kindness is the most natural and humane of all virtues. It is spontaneous. It is a livewire … that splutters into life.

It costs nothing to acknowledge a neighbor or a passerby.  It costs nothing to smile at a vendor when he fills your bag . It costs nothing to say thank you when someone has done something, even if that is what he was supposed to.  It costs nothing to wish someone well.  It cost nothing to help someone in need. It costs nothing to slow down and let the heavy cart puller pass.

But it leaves you the giver with deep happiness, it spurs more kindness.  It’s a shot stronger than a dopamine high.  Kindness at work cannot be detrimental to your growth unlike what is generally propagated. For you are a better person.

Kindness gives more to the doer than to the receiver.  Yet there is such a dearth of kindness.  The collective goodness in the society is impact by this.

Psychologists understand this and there are various kindness programs. Even kindness curriculum in Universities.  

I am going to reclaim my desire to say thank you … and I hope the one thing people say when I die is that she was kind.   That’s all that matters.