From Aesop’s Tales
- The Lion and the Mouse (one of my absolute favourite books
as a child)
What does it cost to be kind? It’s something as parents we
probably says to our children when they are fighting with their siblings or in
our mind when we see people do something we see as mean and hurtful. Today as I
watched a short clip about compassion I asked myself was I kind, was I a kind
person, did I do kind things, did I ever put myself out to do a random act of
kindness, not something simple but something that took some of my time, or
thought or action. Something that I could look back on and say to myself - well
that made a difference. For years I have done things of a voluntary nature. I
have organised lots of clothes for charities, I have fund-raised in some small
way for charities and maybe I have done a few things that could be counted as
kind. But while searching inside myself I thought about all the things that I
have done that are really unkind, things like giving out about people behind their
back, idle gossip that seemed funny at the time, being rude, saying things to
my children and husband that really are unforgivable. It’s funny when you look
back over your life and you start to think about the things you did and
somethings just stay in your memory, for me it was an instance on a plane, and
even now 16 years later I think how unkind I was.
While heavily pregnant and on a medium length flight, my
seat was at the back of the plane. A woman sat in the seat in front of me and
the seat moved into the lowered position. Now I could have leaned forward and
said “would you mind putting your seat forward, but no, I was in a bad mood and
I didn’t want to be on the flight and so I pushed the seat forward. The seat
slipped back again, at this stage I was getting annoyed, even more so when the
lady didn’t push her seat up despite being asked by the air hostess. Again I
pushed the seat forward feeling even more annoyed. Eventually, as though she
felt my annoyance this little face peered around the seat at me. It was a little
old woman, a nun no less and she very gently said “Could you please tell me how
to fix the seat; I can seem to get it to stay forward". I told her what to do
but my God if a hole could have developed and swallowed me, it would only have
eased my shame a tiny bit. I felt so utterly unkind, not because she was a nun
but because of her kindness to me in the manner she asked for help.
This might seem trivial in the great scheme of things but it
really bothers me. It bothers me because I took the easy option, I didn’t try
the kind option first and then if needed be more assertive, no I went straight
to unkind all because I didn’t have the guts to say something, to put myself
out there and see what happens, because in truth I was not brave, I was a
coward and I hid the way cowards do behind anger, bad feeling and unkindness. Reading
more in compassion has these days made me really think about things. It doesn’t
always stop me from being unkind, that is something I need to work on a lot
harder. I do know that over the course of our lives we will get the chance to
be kind but we can make those opportunities more frequent by putting ourselves
out there, taking a chance on someone or something and by doing random acts of
kindness not to make ourselves feel good but for the good of others, with no
hype or glory. I leave you with this thought not mine but that’s ok too.
“Kindness and compassion comes in many forms. It comes from
different people in all walks of life. It knows no bounds. It has no limits.
Because a good heart sees no barriers. “ ( I couldn’t see who wrote this)
