Acts of kindness can make a real difference in our lives. We all know that life can be difficult but a smile from a stranger, a friendly word from a shop assistant, someone giving way to us in traffic, a favour from a colleague, an unexpected gift or card from someone, or a compliment from a friend can have a significant positive effect on how we feel.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, it is not only the receiver of a kind act that benefits but also the giver. A study showed that once our basic needs are met, spending money on others (by buying them a small gift) makes us happier than spending the money on ourselves.<\/p>\n
So given the powerful impact on our psychological state, why don\u2019t we practice more acts of kindness?<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s because we\u2019re afraid of being humiliated. What if we try to do something nice and the person takes offence and embarrasses us? Shame is a powerful emotion so being nice is risky business.<\/p>\n
I caught up with a friend the other day and she told me about a recent encounter that perfectly illustrated the issue of kindness, risk and impact on well-being. (She was okay with me sharing this story so no confidences have been broken).<\/p>\n
My friend \u2013 let\u2019s call her Claire \u2013 was getting tired of the downstairs kids running up and down the hallway making noise so she wrote a nice letter to the neighbour asking her to try to calm her children down. The neighbour immediately confronted her and Claire tried to calmly explain that she needed to be able to relax at home after a hard day and the constant noise was making that difficult. It quickly became apparent that the neighbour wasn\u2019t going to listen to anything Claire said so she decided it was best to leave.<\/p>\n
Later sitting in a caf\u00e9 Claire felt unsettled and thought about what she could do in order to feel better, so she went back and knocked on the neighbour\u2019s door and asked: \u201ccan we start again<\/em>?\u201d\u00a0 The neighbour immediately invited her in and they had a talk about how bad they had both felt about the earlier conversation and that cleared the air. Then they both went on with their day feeling much better.<\/p>\n I was impressed with my friend.<\/p>\n What would\u2019ve stopped a lot of people from doing what she did would\u2019ve been the fear of being yelled at and having the door slammed in their face.\u00a0 Yet I think the chance of that happening is a lot smaller than we think. Basically I believe that most people prefer to have a friendly interaction over an angry and unpleasant one. (I know there are always exceptions but I\u2019m talking about statistical averages here).<\/p>\n So why not try a few random acts of kindness and see what happens?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Acts of kindness can make a real difference in our lives. We all know that life can be difficult but a smile from a stranger, a friendly word from a shop assistant, someone giving way to us in traffic, a … Continue reading