The Kind Point December 19th, 2024

Kindness—It Isn't What You Think

Hi! I'm Jeff, if you're reading this, it's because I view you as someone I'd want to sit down over matcha and chat about life with. I'll be sending this newsletter out every few weeks or so. If it's not your jam, feel free to unsubscribe, I won't be offended!

In the second of the X-Men movies, as Storm and Nightcrawler are about to confront a villain who can distract people with illusions, fellow superhero Jean Grey issues them this warning:

“Don’t believe anything you see in there.”

Soon they encounter a sweet waif of a girl in a white smock who greets them and asks them what they’re looking for. Seasoned crimefighter Storm looks around to suss out fiction from reality. But Nightcrawler completely forgets Jean’s warning and falls prey to the villain’s tricks.

Cue fight scene music!

I’ve pursued the noble and somewhat vague goal of kindness my entire life, ever since its illusion was bestowed upon me in grammar school, and like Storm, I’ve become adept at sniffing out the knockoffs from the real deal.

It all started in second grade, when Mrs. Eliason called a few of us to the front of the class for a surprise awards ceremony. I got Good Citizenship, which she explained meant kindness. She said I was nice and made my classmates feel good. While everyone applauded, my eight-year-old brain filled with such a flood of endorphins that I could barely see straight. I knew I wasn’t a jerk but had no idea you could get a gold medal for being nice.

Let’s just say that the rush of feel-goods set me up to chase after more of that recognition, and like a young influencer of yesteryear, I made it my brand.

Every time someone said, “Such a good boy. So kind. So nice,” my brain would light up like a Christmas tree.

But there was a dark side to it. I was not only closeted as a kid, but skinny. I didn’t have the brawn to fend off would-be bullies. I learned how to wield kindness like a cudgel, making anyone look bad for going after Kind Boy.

To be fair to Mrs. Eliason, she had no idea that she was handing me a weapon when she awarded me that little Good Citizenship metal.

Like any good weapon or tool, once you overuse it, it gets warped, losing its ability to yield the desired results.

It didn’t help that when I looked around me growing up, what passed for kindness was really co-dependency. Always smiling, always ignoring bad behavior, always dropping personal boundaries for the sake of someone else’s needs and wants.

Now? Not so much. I do have my Nightcrawler days, falling for society’s mind games. But I’m more Jean Grey, issuing fair consumer warnings, and have cultivated my inner Storm, too.

I’m like that street criminal hired by the Feds because I know how the scams work from the inside. Or the computer hacker who now only uses her powers for good.

True kindness doesn’t make you a doormat. It has teeth. It also has creativity. A genuine heart. It shines. And it sure as hell isn’t selfless. It has good boundaries built on a solid foundation.

Over the years, I’ve learned to spot the real deal among the fakes, like those watch experts who look for telltale signs when deciding if a Rolex is real or not.

Here’s what I’ve discovered: There seems to be five distinct aspects (I refer to them as buckets) that must be present in order for kindness to be authentic. I’ll go into more detail in future newsletters, including what you’re left with when even one aspect is missing, but here’s an overview, in no particular order:

The Five Buckets of Kindness

Honesty: telling the truth and being forthright. This includes honesty about others, AND yourself.

Clarity: good boundaries and being precise. As Dr. Brené Brown likes to say, “Clear is kind, clear is kind, clear is kind.”

Sweetness: a gentle tenderness that is the trademark of little kids and puppies, as opposed to the saccharine variety.

Playfulness: creativity, and an inherent sense of inclusive (rather than cruel) fun.

Vulnerability: the willingness to be affected by life, including other people. The antonym, of course, is being invulnerable, aka the castle drawbridge is up at all times.

As I said, stay tuned for more on these buckets. In the meantime, anyone else out there recovering from misdirected niceness? Feel free to share what you’ve learned.

Something Kind

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