What is Our Duty to Human Kindness
What is Our Duty to Human Kindness
By W. Owen Thornton
Lately, a great deal of information has been hitting my human kindness radar in regards to our individual duty to practice human kindness towards ourselves and others. I think we're often kindest to our "selves" but some of us don't even see our own inner worth and we stick our head in the sand, forget about ourselves and blunder on through life without concern for our own wellbeing. It's more than I can tackle here, though this idea of depriving ourselves of kindness is a plight upon many people suffering from abuse (existing abuse our historical abuse), those suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder etc. So that's an idea for another article at another time. I'm most concerned here with the question do we even have a duty to practice acts of human kindness towards others?
The quick answer, if we want a better world (which is what this web blog is all about) is, naturally, yes. We live in community and life is better when we have others on our side working on our behalf, even if it's holding open a door when someone else's arms are full of groceries. I think even the notion of demonstrating common courtesy towards others is one that indicates there is an expectation that we will practice acts of human kindness towards others. The problem we have with practicing human kindness towards others is "how far do we go?"
In the movie Pay it Forward, a movie all about practicing extraordinary acts of human kindness towards loved ones and complete strangers, the lead character, a little boy, paid for his acts of kindness with his life. In his attempt to save a weaker boy from being picked on by bullies, the title characer was stabbed to death. Now I'm not advocating that kind of heroics here. Let me call the extent to which we lay a part of ourselves on the line, the depth of your act of kindness. Doing nothing when there's the opportunity to be kind, doesn't even hit the depth chart. Opening the door for others is a mere blip and sacrificing your life is "off the chart".
I'd like to think that writing a blog about human kindness and attempting to practice it a little bit each day is a "steady-as-she-goes" sort of depth in regards to human kindness. It is far from heroic, but it is more than scratching the surface too. But I don't see my acts as heroic or off the chart either. I'm not sure why I've never done the kind of act of kindness that I write about. Maybe my humbility prevents me from seeing what I do as being as meaningful to others as my acts really are. That could be true. But one thing about acts of human kindness ... unless you deliberately look for opportunities to do nice things for others, both stumbliming upon them and having then having the time and ability to respond in the moment is a very difficult thing to practice. I've shared with you all the reports about how we can walk past opportunities to help others simply because we didn't find a dime in a phone booth. So it would appear our tendency to practice human kindness in others cannot be left up to chance, but requires regular focus.
What I have continually asked of myself and of you, here at www.thehumankindnessproject.com is to practice acts where there is some self-sacrifice to help someone else other than yourself. On the depth chart this means something more than a scratch and something that, say, is a bit risky. Making a pitch to your boss for someone to come work at your company is something like what I'm talking about. You know your friend, but if he/she doesn't fit and needs to be fired later ... well there's some risk that your reputation will be on the line because you made the direct referral. So that's the kind of act I'm thinking of here.
But the second question beyond the depth of our human kindness actions is ... if we believe that we do have a duty to practice human kindness towards others at all ... is how often do we need to tip the balance between living our own lives and performing acts of human kindness for others? Certainly we cannot all be "Mother Theresa." Were we all doing acts like she performed, there would be no one to mine the oil, to create the fuel, to fly the plane to places in the world where people like Mother Theresa need to be in order to be able to help those in need. And we have a duty to our friends and families and children and ... most of all to our selves. We cannot overlook the "self" in this equation. At times, we need to place ourselves number one. We have to take time to nurture our bodies and souls so that we have the time, desire and energy to be kind to others in the right measure.
There are so many causes out there. And we are members of proto-groups that should take responsibility for doing the right thing. Men should discourage their friends from objectifying women. Running shoe buyers should discourage others from buying shoes from companies who underpay foreign labour in sweat shops. People on earth should care about the diminishing habitat of the African elephant. Coral reefs are under threat. Rain forests are being chopped down. Kids are sniffing glue in Canada's North. Girls are second-rate citizens in dozens of countries. Thousands of children starve to death every day when there's enough food in the world to feed everyone ... if lack of concern, an inability to know how to help and corrupt officials would allow us to feed everyone. Sometimes the burdens of all that clutter of our world makes us just want to stick our collective human kindness heads in the ground and focus on the only thing we CAN control ... our own lives. But even "controlling" your life is a myth, isn't it. People get fired, plants close, cancer strikes and suddenly even our own lives are out of control.
But wait ... we're a long ways away from human kindness, now, aren't we? Sort of. But sort of not. There are so many places where we could practice human kindness that we feel overwhelmed and we give up hope that our efforts will even matter. We lose hope in what little things we might do that we talk ourselves out of doing anything at all. We have to pick a cause to care about ... make a stand that we can make ... and hope that a drive to knit slippers and sell them at a garage sale in order to raise money for a well in Africa is enough. So here are two tips about why and how you should be kind to others.
Why you should be kind to others is that it makes you a better person. You become more aware of the world around you and when you don't think of YOU ALL of the time, anxiety levels decrease. Christians will tell you that when you pray, you should pray for others before you pray for your "self" and this seems like a good way to begin thinking outside of our own lives ... because it's easy to think about our own lives ALL of the time.
I'm going to take a "how" you should be kind to others from a chapter from my church's Kids-To-Kid's mission projects. The leaders of our youth lead three kinds of projects each year: one that helps people in London, one that helps people in Canada and one that helps people somewhere else in the world. Now this mission project helps perfect strangers in most cases, but you don't have to make it like that for yourself. You might help a friend get a job (local) write a letter to your MP about your concern about the problems with remote northern communities (national) and send money to a food grain project to some place like Haiti (international). And voila ... you've practiced human kindness in a way many people do not in this day and age.
Ed Begley Junior is a leading environmentalist who walks the walk and talks the talk, but who understands what it means for everyone else to be an environmentalist. Ed knows that not everyone can go to the extreme measures that he has in order to help the environment. He knows it's not practical to think that everyone will do what he has done. But you could compost today if you've never composted. Or maybe hold a recycling fair on your street so that fewer used goods end up in the city dump. If everyone did just a little bit more than they do now, the environment would be much improved.
Hope. Hope for the environment, or kids in Canada's North, or the homeless in our cities begins with something small and then it grows into something big. I believe we all have that capacity within us ... if we but believed in ourselves and in our own natural, and divine gifts.
Owen
By W. Owen Thornton
Lately, a great deal of information has been hitting my human kindness radar in regards to our individual duty to practice human kindness towards ourselves and others. I think we're often kindest to our "selves" but some of us don't even see our own inner worth and we stick our head in the sand, forget about ourselves and blunder on through life without concern for our own wellbeing. It's more than I can tackle here, though this idea of depriving ourselves of kindness is a plight upon many people suffering from abuse (existing abuse our historical abuse), those suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder etc. So that's an idea for another article at another time. I'm most concerned here with the question do we even have a duty to practice acts of human kindness towards others?
The quick answer, if we want a better world (which is what this web blog is all about) is, naturally, yes. We live in community and life is better when we have others on our side working on our behalf, even if it's holding open a door when someone else's arms are full of groceries. I think even the notion of demonstrating common courtesy towards others is one that indicates there is an expectation that we will practice acts of human kindness towards others. The problem we have with practicing human kindness towards others is "how far do we go?"
In the movie Pay it Forward, a movie all about practicing extraordinary acts of human kindness towards loved ones and complete strangers, the lead character, a little boy, paid for his acts of kindness with his life. In his attempt to save a weaker boy from being picked on by bullies, the title characer was stabbed to death. Now I'm not advocating that kind of heroics here. Let me call the extent to which we lay a part of ourselves on the line, the depth of your act of kindness. Doing nothing when there's the opportunity to be kind, doesn't even hit the depth chart. Opening the door for others is a mere blip and sacrificing your life is "off the chart".
I'd like to think that writing a blog about human kindness and attempting to practice it a little bit each day is a "steady-as-she-goes" sort of depth in regards to human kindness. It is far from heroic, but it is more than scratching the surface too. But I don't see my acts as heroic or off the chart either. I'm not sure why I've never done the kind of act of kindness that I write about. Maybe my humbility prevents me from seeing what I do as being as meaningful to others as my acts really are. That could be true. But one thing about acts of human kindness ... unless you deliberately look for opportunities to do nice things for others, both stumbliming upon them and having then having the time and ability to respond in the moment is a very difficult thing to practice. I've shared with you all the reports about how we can walk past opportunities to help others simply because we didn't find a dime in a phone booth. So it would appear our tendency to practice human kindness in others cannot be left up to chance, but requires regular focus.
What I have continually asked of myself and of you, here at www.thehumankindnessproject.com is to practice acts where there is some self-sacrifice to help someone else other than yourself. On the depth chart this means something more than a scratch and something that, say, is a bit risky. Making a pitch to your boss for someone to come work at your company is something like what I'm talking about. You know your friend, but if he/she doesn't fit and needs to be fired later ... well there's some risk that your reputation will be on the line because you made the direct referral. So that's the kind of act I'm thinking of here.
But the second question beyond the depth of our human kindness actions is ... if we believe that we do have a duty to practice human kindness towards others at all ... is how often do we need to tip the balance between living our own lives and performing acts of human kindness for others? Certainly we cannot all be "Mother Theresa." Were we all doing acts like she performed, there would be no one to mine the oil, to create the fuel, to fly the plane to places in the world where people like Mother Theresa need to be in order to be able to help those in need. And we have a duty to our friends and families and children and ... most of all to our selves. We cannot overlook the "self" in this equation. At times, we need to place ourselves number one. We have to take time to nurture our bodies and souls so that we have the time, desire and energy to be kind to others in the right measure.
There are so many causes out there. And we are members of proto-groups that should take responsibility for doing the right thing. Men should discourage their friends from objectifying women. Running shoe buyers should discourage others from buying shoes from companies who underpay foreign labour in sweat shops. People on earth should care about the diminishing habitat of the African elephant. Coral reefs are under threat. Rain forests are being chopped down. Kids are sniffing glue in Canada's North. Girls are second-rate citizens in dozens of countries. Thousands of children starve to death every day when there's enough food in the world to feed everyone ... if lack of concern, an inability to know how to help and corrupt officials would allow us to feed everyone. Sometimes the burdens of all that clutter of our world makes us just want to stick our collective human kindness heads in the ground and focus on the only thing we CAN control ... our own lives. But even "controlling" your life is a myth, isn't it. People get fired, plants close, cancer strikes and suddenly even our own lives are out of control.
But wait ... we're a long ways away from human kindness, now, aren't we? Sort of. But sort of not. There are so many places where we could practice human kindness that we feel overwhelmed and we give up hope that our efforts will even matter. We lose hope in what little things we might do that we talk ourselves out of doing anything at all. We have to pick a cause to care about ... make a stand that we can make ... and hope that a drive to knit slippers and sell them at a garage sale in order to raise money for a well in Africa is enough. So here are two tips about why and how you should be kind to others.
Why you should be kind to others is that it makes you a better person. You become more aware of the world around you and when you don't think of YOU ALL of the time, anxiety levels decrease. Christians will tell you that when you pray, you should pray for others before you pray for your "self" and this seems like a good way to begin thinking outside of our own lives ... because it's easy to think about our own lives ALL of the time.
I'm going to take a "how" you should be kind to others from a chapter from my church's Kids-To-Kid's mission projects. The leaders of our youth lead three kinds of projects each year: one that helps people in London, one that helps people in Canada and one that helps people somewhere else in the world. Now this mission project helps perfect strangers in most cases, but you don't have to make it like that for yourself. You might help a friend get a job (local) write a letter to your MP about your concern about the problems with remote northern communities (national) and send money to a food grain project to some place like Haiti (international). And voila ... you've practiced human kindness in a way many people do not in this day and age.
Ed Begley Junior is a leading environmentalist who walks the walk and talks the talk, but who understands what it means for everyone else to be an environmentalist. Ed knows that not everyone can go to the extreme measures that he has in order to help the environment. He knows it's not practical to think that everyone will do what he has done. But you could compost today if you've never composted. Or maybe hold a recycling fair on your street so that fewer used goods end up in the city dump. If everyone did just a little bit more than they do now, the environment would be much improved.
Hope. Hope for the environment, or kids in Canada's North, or the homeless in our cities begins with something small and then it grows into something big. I believe we all have that capacity within us ... if we but believed in ourselves and in our own natural, and divine gifts.
Owen
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