Kindness

Kindness is sometimes very very painful. It can pin prick so deeply, that tears flow at the feel of it. A stranger, continents away, can affect an individual more positively than their partner. Why? If kindness is a topic so common that it’s a global marketing slogan, why is it so complex? Why is it that kindness is the opposite of what we want?

Kindness. First, what does it mean to you? Usually, at the start of this question, kindness is the opposite of what someone has already taken from you. Therefore, it is a propriety, owned by a sales representative. What I am saying is for you to take it back. It’s yours. No one can possibly, in truth, take kindness from you. But they can capture your attention, turn your attention from yourself, and command your very thoughts. So, you are waiting on their tempo, their conduction. You are waiting for this person, often a ghost from your past, worse, a ghost of your current life, to just /give it back/. Waiting, waiting, and waiting. Remember the coin behind your ear trick? A person identifies a concept to you, suggesting it is universal (monies, a coin) but, in truth letting your imagination, anticipation, and requirements build on what that object is, what it’s worth to you, and what its absence means to you. This person has captured your attention and expectation. So that your attention is on their product and your expectation of fulfillment.

When someone is intuitive enough to see what has been taken from you, and they give that version back to you in hopes of being kind, it hurts. It is not the original moment of pain, it is not the person who dealt you the pain, therefore this kindness is a memory of what you had before. It is a release of the expectation of recovery. It is, in fact, a relapse.

“I have something you want”. That is what kindness has come to determine.

What I am asking you to do is remove these expectations of kindness and plant, give, offer, create your own. If you had to be kindness, all unto your own definitions, what would you create to offer another individual? What this kindness is tells a lot about you.

Imagine, however, that if we each are in the kindness response stage of what has been taken from us, the question of what kindness means to someone else becomes impossible to determine. The diversity of human exposed experiences and how we respond is infinite. We cannot possibly know all of what has happened to someone else in order to know what they would perceive as kind.

Going over to someone’s home and how we present ourselves to their home is an act of kindness. But each home is built on a cultural dynamic. Now I have to know, understand and determine what the culture that built that home expects from me? I can’t do that!! As fun and seemingly respectful that endeavor might be, it’s impossible. I’m not them.

When someone uses the offer of returning something that was taken from you as a reward of kindness, it is a brutal act of dominance. They use your definition of pain, remind you of your loss, and train you to accept what they give you and say thank you. You have agreed on their definition of you, which is based on what you no longer are.

“They don’t love you like I love you” embodies abuse, manipulation, and control. It performs love as what love does to you, per individual. Watch out when someone uses that term to you. Love is yours, comes from you, is built by you. You take love, your love, wherever you go. When you arrive, when you leave, when you are alone.

Kindness is your extroverted sense of culturally responsive love. You love your partner. You can’t go giving that love to others, because you hurt their partners and their union. Your green light means go is that you want to be kind, your red stoplight is not taking from others. Kindness is what your partner would want to be handed them from a stranger.

True kindness is a gift of protection of a space of freedom. It does not take from another’s space. Kindness does not take advantage of absences. Kindness allows the other person the freedom and protection to be themselves in that moment, and keep all of their relationship boundaries intact. Kindness is you carrying your identity boundaries intact while reaching out to build a bridge of strength of no return. There is no taking from the others, there is no return reward for you. What you give is kindness, this kindness is a beautiful creation only you can create. Kindness is safe for others, a unique gift of you that took your resources to give away. Kindness is you. This is why the recipient is truly compelled to say, “Thank you”.