Unconditional Kindness
I was recently chatting with a friend who follows the philosophy of radical kindness, the idea of which is to be “unconditionally kind to everyone, regardless of whether you know them, how they treat you, and how they react to you being kind”. She mentioned the idea only in passing, but the phrase made a pretty strong impression on me.
Having been a recipient of that sort of kindness when I was in a vulnerable place, and seeing the person enact this sort of kindness towards people who she know can be about-faced, there's something about it that felt really powerful. The vast majority of kindness I see (and enact) are of the type towards people I know, towards people I like, and towards people who reciprocate. Seeing something cut so squarely against this assumption of people feels like I'm witnessing some alien phenomena. Though the way it makes you feel, as a recipient, is as human as one could possibly imagine.
Is it possible for me to be unconditionally kind all the time? I think it's possible that I lack the energy for it, or maybe I don't have the temperament for it. But I would at least like to give it a shot, and if it can't be all the time, then at least it's made the world a better place.
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Categorized under: #philosophy