The Magic of Kindness

I believe in the magic of kindness.

Since the beginning, on all of my social media platforms, I have used the hash-tag #KindnessISMagic.  It has been positively received, judging by the returns, favorites and, yes, data analytics.  During the same time period, I have used positive media to globally present the infinitesimal and heart-wrenching global crises to the same audience, garnering the same positive response.  This seemed paradoxical.  I had to pause and reflect upon “Why?”  I concluded that there is a lack of positivity, not only in the news but, in our everyday worlds. 

So, for the last year, I have engaged in my own “social experiment” by using “kindness is magic” in my everyday encounters.  I wanted to know if something that traverses an internet those unfamiliar had often deemed antiseptic was a mere colloquialism or if there was any practical application.  Would it be as evocative in ‘real life’ as it was online?  I made a concerted effort to “put it into practice.” This short piece is my personal reflections to the initial reactions.

After the Holidays last year I woke-up only to discover that an upstairs pipe had leaked into the lower level of my home.  Needing to take stock before calling my insurance company, I donned my Crocs as the carpet was already pretty much under water only to discover that the ceiling was crumbing and the walls peeling. There was thousands of dollars of damage. 

The insurer concurred that the extensive water damage required the installation of new carpet. I purchased it from a home retailer; Home Depot, a ‘superstore’ reputed for having impersonal service.  I was informed that it uses independent contractors for the installation. 

The ceiling and walls repaired, the time came for the carpet to be installed.  Of course, the installers’ arrival late one morning was just as I had become immersed in a project.    Trusting I could leave them to their work, I headed outside to my deck, my “home office”. 

It was only a matter of minutes before the team leader appeared, righteously informing me that moving the up-right piano out of the area was not part of the contract to ‘move everything’. Now I had previously moved that piano across the room with no more than the help that that of a 14 year old boy. 

“The piano’s on wheels.  If one you or one of your helpers will help me we can shift it out of the way.”

“No.”

He turned and headed out to the rusted, overloaded work van and plopped down on the tailgate, where he and his crew sat in silent protest.

My cell phone rang as I stock of the scene.  The caller was a young lady from the Home Depot.  First came the expected repeat of what I had already been told.  I replied that I was confused about how ‘moving everything’ did not include everything.  Then it occurred to me that my thinking was neither going to get the job done nor did it represent what I had come to believe.  I shifted my perspective, my approach, and my tone of voice.

“You know, kindness is true magic.  Two people mindfully working together can find a solution to almost any problem.  There are always solutions.  This piano can be moved.  I offered to move it with the installers but they said no.  Now they’re just sitting when they could be finishing this job and moving on to the next one.  I don’t understand the logic here.  It would seem to me that everyone’s interests would be best served if we all worked together.  Kindness really is magic.”

She paused, no doubt unsure how to take that, as that was mostly certainly not what people usually say.   

“You’re right.  I am coming right over.  We’ll get this taken care of.”

The smile in her voice was so discernible it made me smile.  Her kindness was magic.  One act of mindful kindness begets another.

She quickly arrived.  The piano was moved.  Ultimately, neither she nor I moved it.  Perhaps being caught-up in our own contagion, the workers choose to move the piano, without a single complaint. The magic of kindness had touched them too.

What caught me off guard was when the young lady from the store, the allegedly antiseptic store, stuck around to help me move a decade of accumulated ‘stuff’ occupying the floor of a storage closet I had been remiss in emptying.

Each act of kindness generated even more kindness.

Ergo, my hash-tag that #LoveProducesMoreLove.

This scenario has repeated itself many times.  Now, in my everyday encounters, such as when checking out at a store, I consciously “put it into practice”.  When a clerk looks as if customers have drained her of any intention to be up-beat, sporting a tense grimace, the words “kindness is magic” spoken with only kindness are positively received.  The grimace is almost always replaced with a smile.

The surprise was that just about everyone within hearing distance automatically smiles too, having been caught off-guard by hearing someone say something positive.

Someone recently posted that, “We choose our destiny by how we treat others.”

I choose the magic of kindness.

Namaste.