Kill 'Em With Kindness

You're not “calling it how you see it", you're just being mean.

On the scale of stone-cold bulldog to grade-A doormat, there exists a golden mean sought after by all and achieved by few. It’s the happy medium that manifests itself in comfortably setting boundaries while simultaneously continuing to wear your heart on your sleeve. But I’ve noticed that in today’s world, we tend to favour the negative extremity of the scale, praising borderline schizoid behaviour with the sugar-coat of ‘calling it like you see it’ and ‘not taking s**t from anyone’. And maybe we should praise that behaviour. Maybe I could learn a thing or two by practising it, seen as — existing on the other end of the spectrum — I’m the type of person who would lie on the sidewalk bleeding out while apologising profusely for getting in the way of a moving vehicle. So, yes, sometimes I wish I had a little bit more of a backbone. But — and please forgive me for being so assertive — I feel that there’s a distinct difference between calling it as you see it and not taking s**t from anyone, and just being plain mean. 

I see this glorification of apathy whenever I recount horror stories of my personal life. Usually, instead of carving my name into my adversary’s front door or sticking pins in a voodoo doll of their likeness — much to the disappointment of those around me — I end up forgiving them. Those listening to my stories inevitably give me a look of dissatisfaction and pity — as if I’m the trembling abused animal featured in animal welfare advertisements. They lament, “You’re too nice.” Taking in their tone of voice — akin to a nursery school teacher disciplining a toddler — the superlative lands with a blow, and the realisation sets in that being nice means being weak. And while I try not to be resentful of many things in life, that assumption does not make the cut. Because what that attitude perpetuates is the need to prove one’s ‘strength’ through acts and gestures of unkindness — be it a sneer or an ‘avant-garde’ remark undermining someone in your tutorial because they haven’t even read Proust. 

Why is it that meanness has become synonymous with edginess? When someone tells you that they think you look mean, it’s hard to ignore that little thrill that shoots through you: You thought that I looked mean? In our minds, ‘looking mean’ means looking fashionably bored, wallflowering in some dark corner, dazzling the rest of the room with a mysterious and unreadable aura. Of course, it would be great if you did look like that — but you don’t. How you really look is intimidating, unapproachable, and exclusive. Maybe that’s your prerogative, but you end up sending the message to the rest of the room that — even though you’re the same age and a student at the same university as everyone there — somehow you think you’re better than them. And please note the italics — to think that you’re better than everyone else, doesn’t mean that you are. 

It’s not cute to tell your friend she looks bad in her favourite dress. It’s not charming to make someone’s niche (albeit geeky) interest the butt of the joke, and it certainly isn’t cool to give an unsuspecting stranger a dirty look from across a room. Because if there’s one constant in life’s many ebbs and flows, it’s that people will leave once they’ve had enough. So you might just find that when your sulking standoffishness is no longer à la mode, you’ll end up alone. To put it into perspective, you might just look back at your life some fifty-odd years from now, wondering why none of the friends from your past bothered to keep in touch. You might just wish you’d been a little kinder when you were younger. When I reach the end of my life and my skin is wrinkled, I’d much rather have had a positive outlook on life — bearing crows feet and smile lines as proof — as opposed to the evidence that, throughout my twenties, all I did was dole out withering stares to the nearest passers-by. 

Of course, maybe I’m projecting my people-pleasing tendencies onto you, and it’s entirely possible that you don’t care about being liked (all the power to you, I guess), but the fact of the matter is that people are all we’ve got. Right now, it’s easy to take for granted the fact that, as uni students, we’re all living in the same town and have a myriad of social gatherings at our disposal at all times. Maybe the reason for your coldness comes from the belief that your time is valuable and shouldn’t be wasted. And you’re absolutely right — it is and it shouldn't. It’s exactly for that reason that if there’s ever a time in your life to consciously choose to be kind, it’s now. Of course, this is a Viewpoint article, you can take from this what you will, and, of course, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but honestly you’re not garnering anyone’s respect by consciously choosing to be mean, either. 

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I’m a regular John Locke. But I do subscribe to the belief that people are generally good-natured. Are they perfect? Certainly not — and if humans were perfect, we wouldn’t be human. Maybe the girl you drunkenly met in Aikman’s Cellar shot you a puzzled look when you said hello to her on the street — who cares? Sure, maybe your ego’s a little bruised, but life goes on. Is the world still spinning on its axis? Are you still on the way to your best friend’s house? Did your mum still send you an out-of-touch albeit endearing Instagram reel? There is so much kindness to be found in the world if you’re brave enough to keep looking for it. If I let every single casually cruel interaction ruin my perception of humanity, I’d never leave the house. To pessimistically declare each and every person unworthy of human decency is to let your bad days win, whereas to brush it off, continuing as you were — just as kind as before — takes genuine strength. And, hey, if I still haven’t convinced you to adhere to the whole kindness thing, consider remaining gentle-hearted a way of spiting those who don’t. 

If you’ve made it to the end of this article feeling offended because you happened to catch a glimpse upon aspects of your own behaviour within it, please know that was not my intention. I just want the world to be a kinder place, and want it to be experienced as such. But this can only happen if you remember how to be kind. Before we were pavloved into pessimism, kindness once came naturally — back when you believed in magic and declared the kid seated in the adjacent desk your ‘best friend forever’ after the first day of school. Maybe you eventually grew up and realised that the reality of magic begins and ends with rabbits and top hats, and watched that former ‘best friendship’ manifest itself in a yearly (if that) ‘happy birthday’ message on Facebook. Just because the world can be cruel doesn’t mean that you have to be. And besides, this just proves I have more of a backbone than I think: someone had to speak on behalf of us ever-apologising, out-of-fashion Pollyannas. But I’m not casting judgement by writing this article — I’m calling it like I see it.

Image from Wikimedia Commons