Kindness. A Young Reporters article
I have frequently been told is that I’m kind, as I’ve grown up I have realised the importance of that. However, it’s still seen as a weakness of some sort. People refer to being too kind as being ‘soft’, ‘too sensitive’, that is one comment that made me think deeper into why.
As a young woman in society this comment of being overly sensitive and kind is more commonly heard than people may believe. I have never understood why the act of caring for others and for allowing yourself to love people is seen as so negative in some people’s eyes. Personally I have found myself wanting to have the traits of some of my peers, fondly involved themselves in being popular, gossiping, beauty, constant drama. It was difficult to grasp that they were traits to avoid, with everyone around me wanting them.
Luckily I avoided being a part of it. It’s now strange to me how putting others down and picking fights was so popular and so positively looked up to. We were trapped in a reverie that led us to love the smell of unkindness or a fight brewing. It gave something ‘fun’ to think about, someone to talk about, a rumour to spread, and saved concentrating on our own realities.
It’s sad to think that, because kindness is seen as this soft quality that young people turn to acts of cruelty just to be liked. I was always worried about reputation, and that is so incredibly sad because we shouldn’t care what others think, which is difficult.
Reputation isn’t anything if you aren’t kind, if you don’t treat others with respect.
Whatever name they call you, you shouldn’t care because whatever that label is you’re more than that, you are kind. I wish I could tell others the lesson of kindness I have learned now because it really does matter more than gossip and drama and popularity.
Kindness isn’t just to others it also means to yourself which can be a challenge. Giving yourself love means saying nice things to yourself, as you would like to have said to you by others, and it means letting yourself be you! With kindness to ourselves we have the ability to give it to others. We must share it out amongst our friends, strangers and families. That is being a good person, an amazing person even.
We all compare ourselves to others because of looks; have that one girl/boy that we are insanely jealous of because they are beautiful beyond socially acceptable. We give them compliments, kind words whilst overlooking our own beauty within. It’s cliché, I know but to me, I overlook the outside…Maybe too much, because the only beauty and the only trait I look at with such admiration is the ability to be kind. Kind when you are sad, kind when you are mad, kind when you don’t feel like it, kind when you are happy, tired, jealous. I think that’s something for all of us to ponder. Are you kind to somebody is because of their looks, or are you attracted/ friends with them because of their love and kindness they so willingly give to you?
If we all based our compliments on personality rather than appearance I think the world would be a brighter place. Maybe one day we will be able to be kind to ourselves, and then being respectful to another wouldn’t be so difficult …If we give ourselves as much kindness as we should give others our lives would be brighter? At the end of the day, it all comes down to how we treat ourselves.
If you, are told just how soft and overly sensitive you are, I hope you can see now that that is the best compliment anybody could ever receive. Wear it. Wear it gracefully, and please spare some kindness for yourself too. Something I have learned about kindness is that it has the power to change the world.
Kindness is soft, its sensitive, sometimes emotional too but what’s so wrong with having a heart of gold and wanting to share that with others? One of my favourite quotes is – “be wild, but stay soft always”
Article by Young Reporter Grace Trippett.
First published in Grimsby Telegraph 26th January 2021