Choose To Be Kind, Always

Have you asked yourself lately if you are a kind person? Kindness is often mistaken with niceness yet these two words are totally different. We describe people as nice and kind interchangeably but I believe that while it is good to be nice, it is essential to be kind.

“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.” – Henry James

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, KIND means generous, helpful and thinking about other people’s feelings while NICE means pleasant, enjoyable, or satisfactory. From the definitions one can already tell that being kind is deeper than being nice. Being nice is when you are polite to people and treat people well. Being kind is when you care about people and show you care. Sometimes you can be kind to someone even though you aren’t nice to them and you can certainly be nice to someone but also be unkind.

“Kind words do not cost much, yet they accomplish much.” – Blaise Pascal

Kindness is free, it is not forced and it is not displeasing when it is practised. Kindness is telling the truth in a gentle way when doing so is helpful to the other person. Kindness is also a willingness to full-heartedly celebrate someone else’s successes. Kind people are firm, truthful, have established boundaries and empathy. Kindness also includes being kind to yourself and treating yourself with care, attention and affection.

It is easy to deduce that being kind has kind benefits because when you are kind, you feel good about yourself, you make connections easily because people warm up to you, you have fewer negative emotions, and you are at peace. Isn’t that what we all want in life?

Be kind to your brother.
Be kind to your sister.
Be kind to your parents.
Be kind to your neighbour.
Be kind to your friend.
Be kind to your partner.
Be kind to a stranger.
Be kind to your colleague.
Be kind to your employees.
Be kind to your waiter.
Be kind to your driver.
Be kind to your maid.
Be kind to your security.
Be kind to everyone you come in contact with every day, it costs nothing.

Kindness means so much to me and two designs from my t-shirt collection are about kindness. These t-shirts are available in white, grey and black for N6,000 only. Click here to see more designs from the collection.

In a world where you can be anything, be kind.

Thanks for reading.

Mariam Shittu