海角乱伦

I set out to write a blog for World Kindness Day and realized all I could do was think about loss.听

I have read by Naomi Shihab Nye countless times because she so beautifully captures something – the duality of kindness with sorrow, and so, also the relationship that every – that I feel all the time but can never understand.

When I was a certain tender age grappling with all the incongruences in the world – all the annoying paradoxes that irritate a mind that prefers this or that – my father would lose patience with me and snap, Get used to it, kid.听

But I never really did, until recently. Until I began to understand the beauty of duality – of both. That I can鈥檛 think about kindness without feeling sad.

Kindness, according to many sources, is . Good for , good for , and when we pick our intimate partners. Some of us , but we should all at least try and 听

But I think kindness is also important as the antidote to most of what plagues us.听

We need kindness because sorrow is all around us. We need kindness because we have all been betrayed, let down, and unappreciated.听

We need kindness so we can still understand what George Saunders meant in his famous ; all the things we think matter, don鈥檛.听

In the existential sense, we first have to understand that we are all innocent and guilty. We are all the betrayer and the betrayed. All of us.听

And once you can understand this, then you really can know kindness. Once you understand that you are the guilty and the absolved,听 .

Because kindness matters, and it doesn鈥檛. No one is keeping track. Being kind to others may – or may not improve your day. But consider this- . There is nothing further to do or to seek. Happiness as an act is complete.听

Today, and every听day, I wish you a few moments of your own.