Kinder Than Necessary

I have been working on writing My Personal Commandments, inspired by Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project. Gretchen describes her commandments as “The overarching principles by which I try to live my life.” I will be sharing my own list once I have it hammered out, but for now I want to share some thoughts on my #4: Be kinder than necessary.

Kindness is one of those things that we have to be intentional about if we are to make it a habit. Although I think it is essential to a meaningful life, it could be argued that it’s not necessary. It’s necessary to buy our groceries. It’s necessary to get where we need to go. It’s necessary to feed our bodies. It’s not necessary to let someone go ahead of you in traffic. It’s not necessary to do a favor for a co-worker or help a person get a hard-to-reach item at the grocery store. But of course, the idea behind the phrase “Be kinder than necessary” is that we shouldn’t stop at merely not being rude or unkind; we should take that one extra step—or two or three or four extra steps—to improve the lives of the people we come into contact with.

I think one of the simplest ways to show kindness is to ask someone in the service industry how they are doing. My husband is an excellent example of this to me. If we are at a restaurant, going through a drive-through, or making a purchase at  a store, he will almost without fail ask the person serving us how they are doing. And almost without fail the employee’s face will brighten. This is usually followed by some kind of light-hearted banter, silliness, or conversation that visibly alters the person’s mood.

My personality is a bit more reserved than my husband’s, so striking up conversation with a stranger doesn’t come as naturally for me. Nevertheless, I have been pushing myself more lately to simply ask people how they are doing. The other day I was having breakfast with a friend and when our waitress asked how we were doing I missed my chance to ask her back. I made a mental note to be sure to ask her when she came back around (which, I think, ended up being more meaningful). When I asked that simple question—how are you doing?—you would have thought, due to the surprised look on her face, that I had told her I knew some personal secret of hers. She let out a sigh that seemed to be indicative of a stressful morning, said she was doing pretty well, and added, “Thanks for asking!” with a tone that seemed to communicate this was an unusual occurrence.

It made me a little sad to think that such a simple action—with apparently great power to brighten someone’s day—seems to be often neglected by the general population. And it makes me a little sad to think of all the opportunities I’ve missed to make someone’s day a bit better because I was too engrossed in my routine to say four little words.

Sometimes kindness involves spending a little cash, and we certainly shouldn’t shy away from that, but so many "unnecessary" acts of kindness don't cost anything but a little extra thought and attention. And if one of your goals in life is to treat others how you want to be treated, it turns out that all these little acts of kindness are essential after all. And a beautiful fringe benefit of showing kindness is that it has a way of improving our lives in the process.

A wise ancient king once said it like this:

Whoever brings blessing will be enriched,

and one who waters will himself be watered.

(Proverbs 11:25)

*Full quote:“Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle." J.M. Barrie