Kind Enough?

 Last week, I was listening to a chapter in Tal ben-Shahar’s Choose the Life You Want  – one that focused on altruism. As is often the case when I ponder this topic, I felt guilty and somewhat inferior and I immediately started thinking of ways I can up my altruism game, so to speak.

Then I stopped short. Why was I beating myself up? In the chapter, the author was reflecting on a study where a researcher challenged participants to do five nice things in one day. Using this specific metric, I thought back over the previous few days and could immediately list at least five things I’d done, so I decided to go home and make a list.

The resulting list of items – mostly small acts, some a tad closer to medium, but nothing earth shattering – revealed actions that were so much a part of the fabric of my days that I no longer even counted them as acts of kindness. They fit the researchers’ specifications, though, reminding me that I had, indeed, engaged in kind acts.

Does this make me a saint? A martyr? 

No to both. It makes human.

Admittedly, some of the items – a number of them in fact– were win/win. Purchasing a piece of artwork from a student, for example, gave her her first sale, but I also got to acquire a thing of beauty that I could continue to enjoy every day.

So often, when I hear of heroic, selfless acts, guilt is one of my go-to emotions because I immediately think I’m not doing enough. I’m not curing cancer or contributing to world peace, after all, just maybe improving my little corner of the world.

And once I moved past the guilt, I realized that this isn’t such a bad thing. There’s much to be said, after all, for the small kindnesses we give without so much as a second thought. A smile. A hug parentheses (for those so inclined). Our time.

People from Phoebe and Joey on Friends to psychologists and philosophers have famously argued over whether or not there’s such a thing as a truly selfless act. And the data from the study described in ben-Shahar’s book only confounds this issue. Those who completed the task assigned by the researchers and did good felt good – and not just in the moment. Those simple acts, even the small ones, resulted in the kind actors feeling good for as long as a week after the act had been completed.

Some days, my kindness quota will be small. I’m tired, not feeling well, stressed, overwhelmed – you name it. But I think that, if I choose to go through life with eyes open to the opportunity to do good and be kind, and take advantage of those opportunities on a regular basis, I can ditch the guilt. While the world may advertise and celebrate huge altruistic acts (often justifiably so), it runs on the mundane, small kindnesses we offer each other daily. 

Every interaction we have is an opportunity to brighten someone else’s day and every choice we make can potentially make the world a little better – or worse – in some small way. Finding a balance between taking care of ourselves, so we have the energy to do good and be kind, and carrying out those random acts of kindness is, for me, the altruistic sweet spot.

Image by Alana Jordan from Pixabay