A Little Kindness: “You always learn a lot more when you lose, than when you win.” – African proverb

By Kodwo Brumpon

As the world degenerates into relativism, it is becoming clearer to a lot more individuals that no matter one’s beliefs or ideology, what is important is that the right arm needs the left to wash it and vice versa. This is understandable because from the very beginning, life was plugged into our universality.

We were created for each other and to see ourselves as part of the bigger picture, gaining confidence that we are connected to life and to one another. This connectedness implied collective responsibility for one another to the point that harming someone meant harming one’s self.

When we look around us, we see a world specked with intellectualism and wealth, and yet no real security and peace. It has made happiness a rare commodity. This tells us that something went wrong somewhere during our journey. Probably, along the way, our connectivity was re-branded as each one for him or herself and God for us all; thus, complicating our relatedness to each other.

It is not surprising we have made connectivity as insidious as people’s motivations. The meme is that it is not good enough to be just connected, but you need to be connected right. And to have that you need to have a particular sort of association with particular sets of individuals.

This trend, like all other trends, has winners and losers. But what is disturbing about the ‘right connectivity’ is that, it takes away some of the responsibilities that were encased in the original connectivity. The clamour to be connected to the right people has created a new kind of reality where narcissism thrives.

The bulk of our behaviours have become selfish acts performed to impress the right people. We are more concerned about whom we relate with and to and thus challenge ourselves to draw a line of honour that satisfies the dictates of these people. No wonder, an aura of selfishness has engulfed our attitudes and is driving us to be unkind to other and subsequently to ourselves.

What we are overlooking is that our connectivity by itself cannot bring us happiness and the peace we long for. The path to that lies in being kind to one another. And we need that kindness to strengthen our connectedness. Kindness might sound like being soft, to some of us, but it is the currency of our connectedness.

It is nature’s way of helping us touch the lives of those we come into contact with, even if only for a brief moment, in our daily lives. The ripple effects creates the best network of support for our thrive. Kindness is a sign of our belief in life and so it helps to build collaboration, trust and a sense of safety in our surroundings.

It allows us to be sensitive to the world and thus empathise with others to bring out the best in them. It is not something that we ought to do for a reason. It is that thing if we do not practice; we create a weak and wretched society.

When we are not kind, we get stuck in ourselves and in our challenges because cruelty gets the better of us. Kindness is being considerably wonderful to every other person. It allows us to be conscious about the cares of the world.  It needs no impressions and yet its impacts resound for generations.

As change hurls life along faster than before, there is a lot of talk about how we need lots of education to keep with the pace of change. That is true, but we need a lot more, is kindness to keep our world sane. If for nothing at all, we need kindness to forgive the mistakes that would evolve out of our educational experiments. Education would supposedly makes us agile for the change that change brings about, but the sanity of life is dependent on how kind we are to one another.

Contrary to popular perception, being kind are not random acts we litter along life. It is a habitual discipline that requires practice. The result is we treat other people better and we appreciate life. Where kindness is practiced, hope abides. This is because kindness does not restrict itself to familiarity.

Its vision looks beyond our comfort zone and reaches out and encompasses the unfamiliar and uncharted territory. It is a sacrifice that challenges us to serve those who cross our paths in life. Being kind to others inspires a sense of well-being in us. As we genuinely care for others, we naturally feel an emotional investment in those whom we have been kind to and this prompts us to engage in pro-social behaviours.

There are a hundred acts of kindness we can offer to each other every day. What is important is the genuineness of care and thoughtfulness behind the acts. They range from a smile to an appreciation of someone’s action. Quite a number of them might seem insignificant, but they all add up to create an atmosphere of trust that spews out support for the world and for us. A little kindness makes us better humans and connects us to each other better…

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Kodwo Brumpon is an executive coach at Polygon Oval, a forward-thinking Pan African management consultancy and social impact firm driven by data analytics, with a focus on understanding the extraordinary potential and needs of organisations and businesses to help them cultivate synergies, that catapults into their strategic growth, and certifies their sustainability.

Comments, suggestions, and requests for talks and training should be sent to him at [email protected]

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