Praise and benefits of kindness

What is kindness?

The strongest and truest thing about kindness he said it Goethe, many years ago, with a phrase that we should all carve into our headsIt is a chain that holds men togetherKindness seems like just a gesture from etiquette, out of good manners, out of worldly goodness: but this is an understatement. Kindness is an essential ingredient for keeping people together, at any level, for not wasting the wealth of human relationships we possess, for living better with ourselves and with others.

Have you ever really thought about the power of kindness? How many things can change for the better in our lives and in the lives of those around us. It really takes very little to fully reap a series of benefits, ranging from quality of relationships up to physical well-beingBenefits that we often waste only on the wrong lifestyles, where kindness is eclipsed.

An example? Strong and rough manners complicate, in the long run, the life of a couple and make it unsustainable. On the contrary, as demonstrated by research by American psychologists John Gottman and Robert Levenson, the small daily gestures, inspired precisely by good manners, strengthen bonds, they make tensions fade away, they make those who receive them happy. In a word: they transmit love.

The benefits of being kind

It's a keyword that's coming back into fashion: la kindnessFilms, new books, and even courses for all ages. Gentleness is becoming a winning weapon to seduce and convince others, where we have become accustomed to the increasingly frequent use of force, domineering violence, and foul language.

It has been reprintedIn Praise of Kindness by Adam Philips and Barbara Taylor (Ponte delle Grazie editions) and was very successful The Pleasure of Kindness: A Short Treatise on Good Manners in the Ice Age by Bertrand Buffon (Ediciclo editions), which offers some very practical and useful advice.

Meanwhile they are even multiplying courses to teach kindness and its advantages. The AItalian Gentletude Association It organizes courses run by volunteers that explain why kindness, especially in times of Great Crisis, is beneficial, helps advance your career, is a deterrent to dismantling aggression and inspires authenticity and empathy.

Health benefits

And yet: kindness improves themood, empathy, human relationships, and even healthWhen you drink coffee at the bar or when you leave a shop to run an errand, always remember to say the magic word: Thank you. And to reply, "You're welcome," if someone thanks you in return. My mother told me that when I was a girl in her school, one of the subjects the teachers focused on was called Good manners. That is, the ability to be kind: at home, with friends, at the work. An ability we have lost, misplaced.

Think about how many times during a day, perhaps more tense than usual, you find yourself not being kind, having a rude attitude. From family to condominiumFrom the streets to public transportation, a true anthropological drift has taken place in the daily lives of Italians, of which the eclipse of kindness is perhaps the most obvious and easily measured indicator. We have become a nation of rude people. Ask yourself, for example, how much time passes between the moment a traffic light turns green and the honk of the horn from the person behind you: fractions of a second. Board a high-speed train, crowded with respectable people according to the status of their wallets and the price of their ticket, close your eyes, and listen to the noise in the background: the scream of cell phone conversations, and who cares about the train conductor who, also shouting, asks us to turn down the ringers on our cell phones.

Two studies from the University of Oxford have highlighted some important benefits of kindness. The first study shows that being kind, both towards people we're very close to (friends, relatives, co-workers) and towards strangers, increases our happiness levels. And it creates a contagious effect on other people. The second study shows that people who frequently perform kind gestures and actions towards others find themselves with a strengthened immune system.

Thank you, please, may I: synonyms of kindness

In just a few years, according to research by the association, in our homes Gentietude which promotes a lifestyle based on good manners, in almost half of Italian families the words have been removed Thank you, Please, May I? Deleted. He had to think about putting them back on the field Pope Francesco who with his direct language invoked, not only for Christians, the use of three words for to give longevity to married lifeThank you, Excuse me, and Excuse me. Three words we're no longer accustomed to using when we ask for directions on the street, when we push someone around in a hurry to get somewhere (but where are we running every second of our existence?), when we interrupt someone who's trying to talk to us, to communicate beyond the autistic wall of our self-referential and egocentric thoughts.

The anthropological drift that has extinguished kindness has certainly been accelerated by several phenomena, all concentrated in time and effects. There's the burden of an economic crisis now in its fifth year, with all the uncertainties about the future, and a population that has accumulated, like those self-sustaining batteries, anger mixed with indignation, social envy mixed with resentment. And so, the end of the kindness, also as a feeling that binds a community, that holds it together where the conflict of interests and roles is natural by definition.

Importance of good manners

Then we are paying the price of a progressive loss of meaning, understood as the sense of words and civic sense. Profanity is the order of the day, in the agora of the public debate of the national ruling class, that is, the television talk showsThey insult each other, without a shred of shame, without ever uttering a word of self-criticism (for example: excuse me), ministers, famous and influential company bosses, and improvised party leaders, trendy intellectuals, entertainment and gossip icons. They talk as if at a bar after someone has had a drink, or like a taxi driver unleashed on everyone: and yet they, the touring company of Italy in command seen through the remote control, are the front line of the country's ruling class.

Swear words on the web

With television, and more than television, the web is responsible for spreading the new language of daily insults. Facebook also serves this purpose: to vent, perhaps in anonymity, the instinct of anger against someone, not for someone, even someone who until recently was your idol. As for the loss of civic sense, which Italians have always cultivated in small doses, we have taken a leap backwards, into the void, since 1958, when Aldo Moro decided to introduce civic education as a mandatory subject in middle and high schools, not coincidentally anchored to the teaching of history.

Through reforms, counter-reforms and experiments, such as the abstract idea of ​​introducing courses entitled Citizenship and Constitution, a result was finally achieved: in fact in schools nobody teaches children civic education, that is the kindness of coexistence, the importance of courtesy, for the quality of human and social relationships. With your deskmate today, your co-worker, or your neighbor tomorrow.

Books about kindness

It pays to be kind

Fortunately, as often happens in crises, especially when they are truly major, change occurs through the narrow path of utility. And so, slowly, under the radar, we are discovering that it pays to be kind (It doesn't cost anything, by the way) and not being one is a waste in terms of quality of life, including feelings and health. Piero Ferrucci, philosopher and psychologist, in a famous book entitled The power of kindness (Mondadori editions), writes: “Kindness is not a luxury, but a necessity.” A concept that circulates widely today on the Internet, where polite behaviors are increasingly shared, along with associations like the "Italian Movement for Kindness" (www.gentilezza.it), and even online courses on good manners, which have been eliminated in real schools. Time will tell, and you'll see. Kindness will come back into fashion, very much into fashion.

Famous quotes about kindness

• Aesop

The greatness of kindness is in its disarming simplicityNo special gestures, grand gestures, or sentimentality are necessary: ​​small things are enough. And nothing is wasted. This also has an immediate knock-on effect: those who are kind will be repaid in kind. Conversely, rude people are often responded to rudely.

•  Mohammed

We don't know how much truth there is in attributing this splendid phrase from a believer to Muhammad. What we do know, however, and we see it even by frequenting a place of worship or environments that have a connection with religious networks, is that kindness is embedded in faith. Also for one reason: believing means recognizing a higher Authority and at the same time the essentiality of human relationships: two things that, without kindness, they cannot be cultivated.

• James Dean

This parallel between kindness and strength comes from a cultural icon, rather than an actor. Sometimes we get confused and imagine a kind person as fragile, weak, exposed to the risk of being crushed by the arrogance of others. The exact opposite is true: kindness is like armor, protects us from the fragility of others, and in this way makes us stronger.

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