Kindness

This piece was written by the author for a contest run by Sailing Leaf in January, 2018.

“When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind”

                                                                                                                 - RJ Palacio

A simple, beautiful word that can represent a million distinctive shades. A touch of care, a lending hand, a heartfelt smile.

Kindness divides people into two. White or black. Picturesque drops of rain or rumbling thunder. The world is weird, or so I think, because we will do anything out of motive, won’t we? Murder somebody, ruin lives without a shred of care.

They say that, “A little spark of sunlight can create a colossal burst of sunshine in someone’s day.” Unfortunately, that is also applicable in the opposite sagacity. Cause kindness begets kindness, but no one thinks that hate begets hate.

I believe that if life was earth, kindness would have been an ocean and us droplets of water making up the ocean.

We play a tiny part, and yet a great one. For a king has no worth, if it weren’t for the pawns.

For many people kindness is a want, but for few it is a necessity.

And those few are the only ones on the planet that truly deserve the title “Human”.

For none of us are true human, who love people no matter what. We judge, we criticize, yet we call ourselves humans. A title we don’t rightly deserve.

We look for the darkness, instead of seeing the tiny ray of sunshine trying to peep through the corner. But we can, if we try to look.

As written by RJ Palacio, and I quote-

“If you truly want to see and understand somebody, all you have to do is look.”

Those tiny little words hold a million meanings. For to know a person we don’t have to change them, merely understand them.

But then, why don’t we?

Because we feel that we are better. Than we truly are. But why?

Because we are the people we love the most. And we tend to think that the people we love don’t have any faults in them. For they are truly amazing.

. Which makes us think that we are perfect.

Even though some of us realize that, we still don’t change ourselves for changing who we are for changing who we are is a difficult path, a dangerous one, which can turn into the direction of darkness within the blink of an eye.

Though tough, there are many which guide us along that path, and those are the ones who are actually kind, who put a halt to their going forward to pull someone else up. After all it is from there how we get the saying, “We rise by lifting others.”

So, today, let’s be choose kind.

Aditi Gaur, Grade 6, Manav Rachna School, Gurgaon