7 & 7: Kind vs. Mean.

REFLECTION:

Of all the gifts we have to offer each other, kindness is of greatest value to the most people. Human kindness is instinctive but must be modeled to take hold. As the individual moves toward independence, kindness will compete with other instincts like exclusion, fear, and self-interest. Kindness must be bred in, well-established, incapable of detachment. It must also be exercised by societal expectations that reinforce “better to be kind than mean”. Kindness should not be held hostage to pretenders who smile only for a purpose, who reach out only to pull back in. Kindness is its own reward. Kindness works against the opposite which seeks to diminish, to belittle, to isolate. Unkindness ultimately is most unkind to those who are its source. One should not wait to be kind. There is no one perfect time. Every time is a perfect time.

MUSES:

One kind word can warm three winter months.
Japanese saying

If you would civilize a man, begin with his grandmother.
Victor Hugo

Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Civilization is just a slow process of learning to be kind.
Charles L. Lucas

The teeth are smiling, but is the heart?
Congo proverb

It takes your enemy and your friend, working together to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.
Mark Twain

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to my fellow-creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Stephen Grellet