When was the last time you gave up your seat to an elderly woman get on? How long has it been since you volunteered at that neighbourhood charity or offered to babysit for a friend on a Friday night? Are you the kind that would much rather help a blind man cross the road safely, even if it means you are going to be a minute late for a meeting?
It’s quite easy to not feel care or compassion or show an act of kindness especially when you’re not having the best day yourself but if research is to be believed, various studies of emotion reveal that human beings are in fact predisposed to having tendencies toward kindness, generosity, reverence and altruism. Random acts of kindness shown towards us to make us feel better, in one way or the other. However, quite ironically, we’re too busy living life in the fast lane that for a good number of us, kindness has become obsolete. Perhaps World Kindness Day is a good day to revive benevolence.
According to Shireen Sait, a school counsellor, “Contrary to popular belief, kindness isn’t a one way street. A random act of kindness does as much good to the giver as it does the recipient. The person whose day is made has enough reason to be cheerful. But showing kindness also makes the giver feel happier. The elevated levels of dopamine in our brains after we’ve helped someone make us feel happy with what we’ve done. And kindness also contributes to healthier relationships.”
“I was on my way to a very important interview last year and was so stressed that I forgot my laptop and wallet in the auto. It wasn’t until I reached the panel discussion room that I realised what had happened. I quickly explained my situation to the board who were kind enough to give me ten minutes to figure something out. I wasn’t hopeful about retrieving my belongings. So I headed to the lobby to make a few phone calls and right there, standing before me was the concierge who gave me my belongings. I was told that the auto driver came back and dropped them off. I was so shocked and more than that, touched that he didn’t even want to be thanked or expect a reward. My faith in humanity was restored that day,” narrates Dipshika Mukherjee, an event manager.
Emotional effects aside, believe it or not, being kind is directly proportional to having a healthy heart. “We feel this beautiful emotional warmth when we are kind to people and it’s not just a ‘feeling’. This emotional warmth has been known to produce oxytocin, a hormone, which releases nitric oxide in the blood vessels, causing their expansion, which thereby reduces blood pressure and protects the heart,” Rakesh Siddiah, a doctor.
Kindness also has a domino effect! It’s contagious and catches on sooner than you can imagine. “When I was teaching at a school in the U.S., we organised this garage sale, the proceeds of which were to go to a children’s home for Christmas. Parents of my class were asked to send old, but useable items that we could sell and while everyone co-operated, there was this seven-year-old girl who brought me her surprisingly heavy piggy bank and asked me to break it open and use that money to ‘buy new clothes for the children because it’s Christmas and nobody should have to wear old clothes’. I wasn’t the only one moved by her gesture. Over the next two days, other students followed suit. Being kind has meant so much more since,” says Elizabeth Arnold, a special educator.
There are more reasons to be kind than all of this for kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see. And the beauty of it is that like a boomerang, kindness always returns!
