Decide on Kindness:  One of the Best Choices We Can Make

Kindness isn’t necessary for survival.  It didn’t bring home the bacon for our ancestors or beat out the competition to mate. It is not, in all likelihood, a quality knitted into our genetic make-up.   Closely akin to empathy, kindness is, on the evolutionary scale, a recent and advanced capacity.  It is less a gut reaction than a conscious decision, made more and more automatic the more it is practiced.

Kindness hints of no danger, of no competitive advantage. It is rooted in a wish for another’s happiness.  Almost by definition, it is expressed in small acts – letting someone into the line of cars ahead of us, opening a door for a mother with two kids and a stroller, leaving a bigger tip than necessary, smiling at someone you pass on the street, being patient with everyone.  What, we might ask, is the point?  Why not stay ahead in line, keep the extra change?  Why go out of my way?   What’s in it for me and mine?  That’s the attitude we were genetically selected for.  And that is why kindness is often an infrequent companion in daily life.  We evolved to be on the lookout for danger, for insults and selfishness. We notice negative occurrences more intensely and remember them longer, often rehearsing them over and over in our minds, because we are genetically programmed to do so.  Kindnesses are often noticed only briefly and then forgotten.

Is there any evolutionary advantage to being kind?  If there is, evolution is such a slow process, and species survival is so linked to quick and repeated episodes of getting food and reproducing our genes that it would be difficult for evolution to select in kindness.  It is a small and subtle quality and will not be chosen as a winning trait for the human species in the traditional evolutionary manner.  However, for individual human beings it has significant survival advantages.  First of all, kindness is a conscious decision, a choice, not a reaction.  The emotions it brings are happiness and a sense of connection.  With these emotions in play, our blood pressure does not rise, our muscles relax, we breathe more slowly and deeply. We are in a zone of safety and wellbeing – a place physiologically and psychologically for thriving.

It is hard to get into the habit of kindness if you send it out only to others.  That can turn into a form of martyrdom.  For kindness to become woven into the fabric of your life, you cannot exclude it from yourself.  We are, often, the most unkind to ourselves in our deepest thoughts and automatic self-talk.  Here’s what I mean by self-talk:  “I screwed up again.”  “I’m too fat.”  “She’s just saying that to be nice.”  “I can’t do anything right.” “I hate my life.”    “I’m such a jerk.”  “I’m so ugly.” —- You get the idea!  When we think and say these things about ourselves, we, often, assume others are thinking the same thing about us.  Then our sense of safety and freedom to be uncensored and open with another person is diminished.  Everything changes. Kindness turns into a form of protectiveness.  Like a boomerang, we send it out to get something safe back.  It’s just not the same as the act of kindness I was talking about earlier, which appears in order for another to be happier.

There are many ways to be kind to yourself.  Take off the pressure to be good enough — to entertain enough, volunteer enough, have your kids in enough activities, get into the best school, win (at whatever).   You could, instead, choose a lifestyle that doesn’t require more time than you have.  Rest when you’re tired.  Pay attention to how you feel; then make decisions based on that information.  Accept what is, and then, go about the business of life as it is.  It is only when we are truly kind to ourselves that we are free enough to pay attention to the world, to other people and realize how valuable it all is.

Because we are not genetically programmed for kindness, it must evolve through culture.  Somewhere along the way, we discovered the kindness capacity in ourselves, valued it and have striven to keep it.  Culture and socialization are the idea equivalents of biological evolution.  We learn and teach kindness through our families, religions, art, communities and schools.   Remember Robert Fulghum’s book, All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?  He gives us a list of what he learned – what we all learn — in kindergarten.  Check it out. It’s really all about kindness.