Kindness - that awesome quality that can change the world

The other day someone sent me a story about civilization and when/how it 'started' which was very inspiring. Years ago, the anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about clay pots, tools for hunting, grinding-stones, or religious artifacts.

But no. Mead said that the first evidence of civilization was a 15,000 years old fractured femur found in an archaeological site. A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. This particular bone had been broken and had healed.

Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, you cannot drink or hunt for food. Wounded in this way, you are meat for your predators. No creature survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. You are eaten first.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that another person has taken time to stay with the fallen, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended them through recovery. A healed femur indicates that someone has helped a fellow human, rather than abandoning them to save their own life.

“Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts,” Margaret Mead said.

So, the start of civilization is kindness - I got a wow feeling out of this!

One may ask what kindness is? Kindness is defined as the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. While kindness has a connotation of meaning someone is naive or weak, that is definitely not the case. Being kind often requires courage and strength.

We have all heard about survival of the fittest and Darwin. Survival of the fittest is usually associated with selfishness, meaning that to survive (a basic instinct) means to look out for yourself. However, that doesn't have to be the case. Research has now shown that devoting resources to others, rather than having more and more for yourself, brings about lasting well-being.

In my view, kindness is one of those virtues that brings us so much joy - to see a smile on someone's face when you have helped them is the most precious thing. A recent study reported on how people felt after performing or observing kind acts every day for seven days. Happiness was measured before and after the seven days of kindness. The researchers found that being kind to ourselves or to anyone else — yes, even a stranger — or actively observing kindness around us boosted happiness. So, we should all choose to be kind.

The purest form of kindness may have no audience and offer no credit. Kindness to accumulate thanks is self-serving at best. I caught parts of a movie by Salman Khan the other day - Jai Ho! While I must confess that I am not a big Salman Khan fan, one of the concepts that he propounded in this movie was amazing. The idea was that if someone tries to thank you and express gratitude for an act of kindness, you need to tell that person that instead of giving thanks, you need to carry forward this spirit by 'helping' three other people and in turn, they need to help three more people, thus creating a 'chain' of kindness in the whole community. What an awesome thought? Kindness does beget kindness. So, why not be the kind person from whom others take their cues?

It is also true that if you put kindness out in the world, it does come back to you. Let me share a story that I have seen a couple of times, just because it is so inspiring. A lady is being evicted from her house and she is being forced to leave immediately (her husband had left her, and she had no money whatsoever). Suddenly, a young man comes and tells the 'evicter' to leave her alone. On being told that only the owner of the house can make such a request, he shows a paper where the name of the owner is written. And lo and behold, it is the lady herself! Everyone is shocked, no one more so than the lady. Then the young man says that I have bought the house in foreclosure and transferred the deed to the lady. The 'evicter' had no choice but to leave and then the young man and lady have a beautiful conversation. Of course, the lady cannot believe why a 'stranger' could do something so 'massive' for her. The young man tells her of the time when he was out on the street as a boy, with nothing to his name. He approached a couple for help. While the man reprimanded him, the lady took pity and helped her with money from her rent pot. She also gave him her mother's necklace for good luck. That help 'kickstarted' the good times in his life and he eventually became a real estate businessman. He could never forget the lady and when he saw her name in the foreclosure list, he knew what he needed to do! He still even had the 'good luck necklace' that he gave back to the lady. What an amazing story! In another similar one, a restaurant worker who helped a homeless lady but was later kicked out for being too 'helpful' meets her back at the same restaurant when she had become successful and she offered him a new job. So, kindness does come back, but that should surely not be the 'reason' for us to be kind. In this case, there was a 'direct' repayment for a kind act. However, it may not be the case. You may never be in a position to help someone who helped you, but you should pass it on to others who you can assist.

Kindness is also lasting - a good deed done by someone for you stays always in your mind and can be uplifting even after a long time.

However, it is not easy to be kind. So, it is important to practice. Aesop, the ancient Greek storyteller, once said, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” If random acts of kindness don’t come easily to you, try this: do one small, kind thing each day for someone. Then pay attention to the impact on you. Does it become easier the more you do it? Do you start to notice and act on more opportunities to be kind in your world? Do you start to feel lighter? Kinder?

So, let's turn 'human being' to 'being human', because that is how the world will become a better place! Amen!