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Among American men, kindness often seems to be perceived as a useful thing for guys who really don’t have anything else going for them, sort of a consolation prize for the second- and third- prize winners in the race.

So if you’re not smart as a whip, you can try kind. If you’re not particularly good looking, you can go with kind.  You can have strong feelings and be articulate about something or you can be kind (turn on the TV “news” and watch for that one!)

I’ve seen kindness misrepresented as some zombie-like quality that people who haven’t fully engaged life can comfortably hide behind, a safe place for those who aren’t passionate about anything.  Nothing could be further from the truth. I am not here to discuss kindness as a consolation prize, but as a characteristic of winners.

The next time you interact with someone smart, accomplished and kind, or someone extremely powerful and extremely kind, or someone incredibly good looking, well-built and incredibly kind, or someone passionate and articulate about what they feel and kind–notice the catalyzing impact of kindness. Kindness doesn’t substitute for all these other attributes or accomplishments; kindness serves them up on a plate. Kindness makes a path for them.

If you’ve never investigated this before, I want to highly recommend kindness to you as an unstoppable force, a powerful tool that has the potential to radically transform your experience of life.

First, let’s clear up some confusion. Kindness is not what many people think it is. Kindness is not a character trait, a moral value, a matter of willpower or something you’re born with or without. Kindness is just skill; it’s like riding a bike.

You get on and you practice. Short, easy trips, at first. You wobble; sometimes you fall down in public and you humiliate yourself, and you get up and get back on the bike.  The more you ride, the better you get. Eventually you don’t fall much if at all.

Anyone can become kind; all you have to do is practice.  It’s actually pretty easy. No one does it perfectly all the time; that’s why we call it a practice.  We keep practicing; the more we practice, the better we get.

Wikipedia defines kindness as “The quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.” That’s it. Friendly, generous, considerate.  It’s not a very complicated thing.

Second misconception: I am not talking about being nice; I have no interest in nice, and in fact I’m quite severely allergic to nice. Nice is when someone is doing something that is driving you crazy and is making your relationship with them difficult, so you stuff your feelings down inside, paste a fake smile on your face, go numb and act like everything’s fine. You’re being nice. (Later, while out to lunch with a friend, you go on and on about how this other person is such a “problem” in your life and causing you major stress. But that’s still often considered being “nice,” as long as the person you’re talking about doesn’t find out.)

That’s where nice goes, and the impact of nice behavior ranges from pointless to highly toxic.

Kind is walking directly up to the person in question and saying, “Sean, I deeply value our friendship.  There’s something causing a little friction for me in our interactions, and I would love a few moments, if you’re willing, for us to sit down and discuss this together when it’s convenient for you.”  Friendly, generous, considerate. Not fake. Not dishonest. Not avoidant. Kindness is engaging life directly, honestly, in a friendly, generous, considerate way.

Nice looks for a way around difficult things; kindness looks for the best way through them, a way into them. Nice ignores, avoids, pretends not to notice; kind pays keen attention and looks for a way to engage. Nice can be done well by any coward; kindness requires courage, honesty and dedication. It also requires skill and practice.

The very first thing that happens when we set out to practice kindness, and the most important, is that we become kind to ourselves. This has immense benefit.

When we become kind towards ourselves, there is a softening and relaxation that occurs, particularly around the areas of our lives where we are a mess: the things we don’t do well; the things we are ashamed of; the things we haven’t learned yet; the secrets we keep; the things we don’t understand; the places we need help; the things we are afraid of; all the places where we really need to grow and learn and improve and heal.

You cannot simultaneously hate the part of you that needs your help, and help it. That part will keep hiding from you as long as there’s unkindness; you won’t even be able to see that part of yourself, let alone work with it.  It’ll pop out in uncontrolled ways at the most embarrassing times. We call it shadow.

Kindness is absolutely required if you’re going to take a good, honest look at yourself, and see the whole picture, the way you really are. And I want to suggest to you, dear brothers, that being a real man involves being willing to take a good, honest look at yourself and see it all. You won’t be able to do that until you become kind, because it’s too painful to look.

When we become kind (friendly, generous, considerate) towards ourselves, then we really start to move through life. We start working with all our pieces, rather than leaving parts of ourselves behind. We no longer waste time on blame or shame or doubt or fear. Life takes off and goes forward; there’s nowhere else for it to go.

If you are in a position of leadership or influence in a group, establishing and modeling an environment of kindness creates safety for other people.  All of a sudden people take risks and make mistakes and share their craziest ideas and deepest thoughts without fear or shame or blame. High kindness environments are incubators for creativity, risk-taking and collaboration because people stop being afraid, and they start living full out. If you’re a leader, part of your job is to help your people live full out.

Touch Practice is predicated on an assumption of kindness, but in many ways it IS kindness in a physical manifestation. If you think about being touched in a way that is friendly, touch that is generous, and touch that is considerate, all three operating simultaneously, that’s a great way to define perfect boundaries.  Friendly touch starts by reaching out (as giver) and being open (as receiver;) generous touch is willing to give quite a bit, but considerate touch is also willing to withhold, reduce, or modify (and remember we’re being considerate of ourselves, too, not just others, so that we never exceed our own boundaries.)

Whichever realm you care to investigate, whether it be the physical (touch) arena, the emotional, the psychological, the spiritual; whether in a business, social, political or relational setting, wherever you might be practicing these days, I highly, highly recommend for your consideration the brilliant radiance of kindness.  

Kindness is not some impossible standard that only saints achieve; it’s a skill. It comes from practice. Start wherever you are; just get on the bike and ride.

Happy trails! See you next week.

Have thoughts you’d like to share?

Touch Practice is a sacred practice for me, and part of that is keeping confidences sacred. While a name and e-mail address are required to post a comment, feel free to use just your first name, or a pseudonym if you wish. Your e-mail address will never be seen by or shared with anyone. It is used to prevent spam and inappropriate comments from appearing in the blog. I’d really like to hear from you!