Tag: kindness

I put garlic sauce on almost all of my meals. From today’s anime episode I learned that having a bottle of it always at hand makes me well protected against vampire attacks.

On another topic – the book I’m currently reading, How to Know a Person, is indeed a good read. It’s about communication skills – about being kind and open, about supporting others in different ways.

My own communication skills are in a pretty bad shape. Of course just reading books won’t improve them. Gotta actually practice the skills and be around people to see any improvement.

Reading the book still has been inspiring. Some chapters had emotional stories that brought a tear to my eye. And others taught me various theory about being a nicer person to be around. Putting the theory to practice will require a lot of trying and failing and learning.

I’ll keep trying my best to become at least a bit more humble, curious and kind.

There’s so much suffering in the world, most of which is brought upon us by other people. There are so many evildoers. Evil, or just indifferent, irresponsible people. People who cause others harm, through their greed, hate, selfishness. But just as I feel sorry for all the victims, I also feel sorry for the ones to blame. The people who make others suffer are not doing it because they have a choice. It is simply the result of the way they are. I know it from my own experience. Whenever I’ve made someone feel bad, it wasn’t as though I could have acted any differently. I acted as well as I could. It just turned out the way it did. In my case the misdeeds are minuscule on scale, for some their deeds have global consequences.

I feel sorry for everyone who causes others harm, for everyone who cannot be kind. I think being kind is the ideal way to be, as taught even by ancient religions. But most of us can’t help but just be the people we are and that is pitiable. I believe people act the way they do not because they decided to, but because of everything that had brought them to that point. A person’s genes, memories, their psyche eliminate all options except the one they will follow. And that one option just sometimes sucks balls for everyone involved.

The biggest, most impactful thing people can do in their lives, that anyone is capable of, is to be kind. It creates a lasting change. Easy to say, hard to achieve you say? Or perhaps, you care about your close ones but not about strangers? Well, listen to me a bit here.

Let’s imagine the total amount of happiness in the world is measurable with a number. Each time someone’s mood improves, the number nudges up. When some problem occurs somewhere, the World Positivity Score™ gets lower. The total amount of happiness in the world has probably increased over the past centuries, but it also has a lot of room for more improvement.

You might know about the law of conservation of energy – which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed – only converted from one form to another. What I’m gonna say here, is that there actually is a way to create something from nothing.

If someone acts positive and polite even if there is no reason to, it will brighten the mood of everyone around them, who in turn will spread it to next people. It will turn into a ripple of good that reaches far. It cost the initial polite person nothing to be polite, yet his actions added happiness to the world.

That is how anyone can make a difference. Be nice. Find opportunities to create positive emotions in others. Your act of kindness will increase the total pool of good feelings in the world, which will continue to exist long after you are gone, moving from person to person.

Even you have a personality that creates more distress than joy around you, you can still apply this principle in your life. If you make a conscious effort, you can at least create a bit less negativity, even if it’s just once a year. Or throw a little spice of good vibes on top of your toxicity when you feel like you can.