The World Needs Kindness

Kindness is often treated as something small. A smile. A few encouraging words. Holding a door open. Asking somebody if they are alright. But perhaps we have underestimated it.

The world doesn't need more people pretending to be perfect. It doesn't need endless positivity or people telling us that everything will be fine. It needs people who are prepared to be kind when being kind isn't necessarily the easiest thing to do.

Kindness costs very little, yet it can change the experience of somebody's entire day. You may never know what another person is carrying, what they are frightened of or what battle they are quietly fighting. That is why we should be careful about the assumptions we make about other people, but kindness isn't just something we give to others. It also matters how we speak to ourselves.

If you make a mistake, does your inner voice immediately tell you that you're useless? When something goes wrong, do you blame yourself before you have even stopped to understand what happened?

You are not broken. And neither is the person standing next to you.

Perhaps the simplest way to make the world a little better is to stop being quite so quick to judge and a little more willing to understand. You don't need to change the world today. You don't even need to change somebody's life. Just be kind.

Say the encouraging thing. Give somebody another chance. Listen instead of judging. And when you make a mistake yourself, remember that you deserve the same kindness you are willing to give to everyone else. Because kindness isn't weakness.

It is one of the simplest ways we can remind each other that we matter and the world really does need more of it.