We all like to be around kind people; their peaceful, relaxed nature puts us at ease. – Dalai Lama
What does that mean?
This quote talks about how kindness can impact others. Kindness can be shown in many ways, from saying hello to holding a door open to giving a complement to a stranger or helping someone across the street. But the quote is about more than just the act of kindness. It is about how nice it is to be around kind people.
In the case of this quote, it is about how a kind person can provide others with a pleasant, easy feeling. People who are habitually kind tend to be relaxed in nature, and peaceful as well. When you put all three (kindness, relaxed and peaceful) together, there is a kind of calm that can be very soothing.
Why is kindness important?
In this case, kindness is being promoted as a way to help sooth other people and help put them at ease. Being in the orbit of kind people, I have noticed, really does make the craziness of life easier to bear. I have found that being around kind people really does make life feel a little less hectic and crazy.
As an added bonus, being around kind people means you are more likely to find someone who can help you when you need assistance. And you will likely find yourself helping others more often, just by following the example of those you are hanging around with. I think that their example is an added bonus.
Where can I apply this in my life?
About a decade ago, I was on my motorcycle and ended up pulling into a parking lot behind another rider I had never met before. I pulled into the next space, put my foot in a pile of very tiny gravel, and promptly dropped the bike. The other rider could have pointed and laughed, but he turned out to be a very kind person. He walked over, helped me find good footing and helped me get the bike upright.
He’s a crazy mix of kind and scary. He looks like he should be in a biker gang. He even tells people that he isn’t mad, a scowl is how he smiles. He’s a nice guy, a kind person and fun to be around, even if his looks are a bit off-putting to those who don’t know him.
I hope you have all had a chance to spend some time with a truly kind person. If you haven’t, I highly recommend trying to find one. I would start by being kind yourself, as I have found that like behaviors attract. I would also keep an eye out for people who are being kind, and interacting with them more and more often.
While the quote is about hanging around other people who are kind, that is just a matter of searching for kind people and spending time with them. I would rather look into how we can become the kind person spoken about in the quote, the kind of person others will want to be around.
The first thing I would try to do is to become more relaxed and calm. You can check out these posts to find out how I addressed becoming calm, peaceful and relaxed (here, here, here, here, and here).
To me, calm is the opposite of emotional. Whether it’s love or anger, if you are emotional you aren’t calm, are you? Take a moment and consider what methods might work for you when you’re trying to become calm. You might use a different method for different emotions, but you’re going to want to have something in mind.
Once you start detecting an unproductive level of emotion, select a method to help calm yourself. Note that I said an unproductive level of emotion. I don’t want you going ‘Spock‘ on me. But I think we can agree that there is such a thing as too much emotion, right?
Once you have a plan for emotion management, it’s time to start practicing. From time to time, when you feel an emotion starting, try your method and see if you can stop it or even reverse it. You may find that your first choice isn’t very effective, so keep trying different methods until you find one that works.
Now all that is left is to work on being kind. See these posts (here, here, here, and here) for my thoughts on kindness. Kindness, like all things in life, requires practice, often lots of practice.
Then all you have to do is be kind to others, and keep an eye out for those who enjoy your company. It might just be because you now have a level of peacefulness and relaxation that others enjoy being around.
From: Twitter, @DalaiLama
confirmed at : it’s his own feed…
Photo by Ed Yourdon
