Definition Of Kindness

Kindness is something that is rare in each common response, although it is one of the most important aspects to any interaction. Many people have disabled their responses on their own by not letting themselves to learn kindness. The two ends of this are strength and weakness. The weak man is the man who is trying to be strong and in effect, they act rude. Kindness shows strength and the more you show the stronger you can be. I learned how to be kind to others and how to stand up for myself without reacting in any harsh or sensitive way like the one that they want.
I have grown up being kind and kindness made aware to me in third grade. I was treated poorly by many of the others kids. There was this one girl (Sophia) who taught me, taught
me how to stand up for myself and how to show kindness and compassion to everyone especially those who are not shown any. The first thing Sophia did was stand up for me, through this action she showed me that someone cared. She kindly told me I need to learn how to stand up for myself and she offered to help me. In this case, many people would agree to help but then ignore them or not really learn it and that is their choice, I decided to learn. She first saw that I was not willing to be rude and unfair back to the people who were being rude and unfair to me. She considered this a good thing. Each time someone approached me to make fun of me she told me to have a kind come back like ‘Thank You’ or ‘You look nice today’ other times she said to make a joke of it and just start a nice bicker with them and not saying anything against them. I tried and tried each time until it clicked. Shortly after I got it under control, I moved and was able to use my new skills at my new school. Later I moved to a school I left a year ago. I was always nice to the bully (Ayanna) of the school and her best friend (Hannah). Hannah was not mean but Hannah did not become friends with others. Once I offered them mints and Ayanna refused throwing, a mean jest back. It was the kind of comment to ignore so I did and I asked Hannah if she wanted one she kindly turned around and she told Ayanna that she would meet her in the classroom. She slowed down, waited for us, and said she would like a mint and that she does not even like Ayanna because she is very controlling from then on we were mutual friends for the rest of elementary school. She opened up to me because I was kind to her no matter what happened.
Standing up for yourself using kindness does not seem possible but all you have to do is imagine a kind response that is not sarcastic or does not sound rude.
If someone makes a cruel jest, you calmly ignore it act like you never heard it and if those people want a response you smile softly and nod your head. This technique is easiest if you are talking to a friend because then it gives you reason not to hear it. If someone makes a soft comment trying to be rude make a joke out of it, usually it will be hard to tell if there comment is sarcasm or meant to be insulting. If someone insults you on a basic level, your clothes, your voice, your actions you can just say thank you and throw it off or give them a comment without sounding sarcastic. The hardest kind to deflect is an insult because it is usually more personal than “you look stupid in purple.” Because you cannot say “I love purple” or “I like the way that shirt looks on you” Those comments are too soft for a straight out insult and deserves something more stern. It also should not show any sensitivity otherwise they would not stop bothering you. One of the best techniques is to invite them somewhere or offer to hang out sometime, this works well because it shows that you do not care what others think of you and what you care and they usually refuse your offer even if they are looking for friendship. All you need to do is find different ways to ask for their friendship each time they insult you. Not only do you need to
try to make friends with them but you should also hold the door open for them pick something up if it drops, you treat them with the same amount of kindness you treat everyone else with even a little more.
When you treat someone with kindness you have no way of knowing how it impacts them but if you look at the first day you met them and the most recent day you will see that they are either kinder or more resistant to being kind because they think kindness is a weakness.
You can also look at yourself and see that it has gotten easier to be kind but harder to use different techniques against bullying. I have experienced a couple people saying straight up “thank you”. There have been times when people have been rude to me because I was being kind to them and others and then later them saying that “Cassie has never been mean to anyone; she has always been kind. How do we treat her in return? We do not treat her very well at all. I believe that Cassie doesn’t have one mean bone in her body.” Then turning to me, he said “Thank you for being kind to us when we haven’t been kind to you.” I always felt confident in myself when I was being kind to them. There were sometimes I snapped at this group but it did not happen very often and when it did I ended up crying and asking them to act differently they respected me for those moments. Even though they never actually tried to behave differently in the way, they treated me. I was fine with that because I learned to live with it but it was not something that I should have been able to get
comfortable.
When you treat others with kindness they feel more confident because you are giving then something to feel good about; someone caring. They feel good because they feel like someone cares. However, you actually come to care for how they feel and wat they are doing. Sometimes people are reluctant to accept your kindness so they act meaner than they already have and you just have to set that aside and treat them like everyone else something not many people want to do. I have learned to just let them be reluctant and to stop trying and eventually they will realize you were just trying to help them.