Michelle George | Week 10: Kindness Always Prevails
In a world where everyone is aspiring to become the most successful or the most powerful person, kindness almost seems as an afterthought rather than an attribute that people try to implement in their daily lives.
Being kind has the powerful ability to comfort someone when they feel worried, stressed, or anxious about any struggles they are facing. It can be just purely listening to a friend rant about a class, a parent, another person, or even how they feel when they experience some self-doubt. Being kind has the ability to relieve that stress and worries with simple phrases such as "I am so proud of everything that you have accomplished" or "I am so glad to have you in my life," which sounds cliché now, but in the moment, someone could really use those words of affirmation as encouragement and a comforting feeling that they are not alone and that there are people around them who care about them.
Kindness does not have to be only towards friends but can also be towards strangers too. Whether it is a small smirk when you pass by someone or a compliment on someone's outfit, that one small interaction can change a person's mood for the rest of the day, proving the impact of small acts of kindness. I like to think that kindness is powerful and "contagious" in the sense that once someone shows another person an act of kindness, it can motivate them to pay it forward and help someone else: a family member, a friend, or even someone at a grocery store.
Those quick yet impactful moments remind me that life can get quite chaotic and while striving to be extremely successful is important, what is the point if you know that to get to that position, you had to tear people down rather than uplift them?
There is definitely a literal meaning to be successful which is that an individual has plenty of money and can have numerous, flourishing businesses, but a successful person can also be a person who is genuinely happy and is rich in kindness as they have the ability to empathize with others and foster healthy relationships with others. With kindness, you are able to earn respect and even attract friends who genuinely wish the best for you and your well-being.
Hi Michelle! I agree with the sentiment that there is no point being successful if you need to hurt people to get there. In my opinion, kindness is what creates connection, and since we're made to be social, we're also made to be kind. If someone becomes wealthy but they aren't kind, then they've lost a significant piece of themselves in exchange for their success. Being kind also makes you feel whole. Small things, like smiling at a stranger or giving my friends gum, makes me feel good. I'm not sure exactly how or why, but I've found that I enjoy being kind, and I think everyone is meant to feel the same way. I also agree that kindness is contagious. When I was younger, I would never compliment people. If I liked someone's outfit or hair, I'd just keep it to myself. When other people complimented me, it inspired me to start complimenting other people. Now, I love giving out compliments, and giving them brightens my day, since I get to be kind.
ReplyDeleteHello Michelle. I fully agree with you when you said that kindness is a very powerful thing. I 100% agree that kindness is contagious, and that we should be kind to everyone because we don't know what they are going through, and being kind to them can brighten up their day. I also like the fact that you also referenced being successful by having a lot of money, and connecting that to being a successful person by being a genuinely happy person and having a lot of kindness towards each other. I also agree with you when you said that you can earn the respect of people and attract friends who want the best for you by just being kind. You gain more things when you are kind to everyone around you, and you gain much less when you are rude and mean to everyone around you.
ReplyDeleteHello Michelle! Going into this blog post I have not read any of your work before, so I will start by saying I was pleasantly surprised by the direction you went with your blog post. While when people mention power they tend to lean towards the big flashy displays of might, it is often forgotten that a small act of compassion often be equally powerful. I really liked your point mentioning how kindness can be “contagious,” often resulting in chain reactions of people showing kindness to others - friends, family, strangers. After all, power is simply the ability to influence the people around you, and if you can brighten up people’s days through an act of kindness, then that is certainly very powerful in itself. Thank you for sharing your blog post with us, and I hope to read more of you in the future!
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle! I honestly love the direction in which you took the prompt. I'm not sure why my mind went this way but I connect your blog with a question from the SAT believe it or not. It was about the study of people's behavior with and without the priming of a kind action. Those who were primed were more willing to help researchers pick up a box of pens that were purposely spilled then those who had not been primed. I also can connect this to my Boy Scouts life, as an aspect of the scouting life is to "Do a good turn daily" which basically means do something good everyday. It doesn't matter how big or how small, one good act can have a butterfly effect of consequences.
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