Being Kind

So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it:

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded…sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth?

Those who were kindest to you, I bet.

It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.

The Times Magazine blog posted the convocation speech author George Saunders gave to Syracuse University graduates, which touches upon, as they put it “…the need for kindness and all the things working against our actually achieving it, the risk in focusing too much on ‘success’…”

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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