Kind of Nice

How you treat other people is more about who YOU are and less about the other people.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to say that, but I've realized it's pretty freakin' true.

It's obviously not good to be mean to others, so I want to focus on the difference in being nice and being kind. I mean, nice people are cool... they're polite, they tolerate others, they're... nice. But kindness surpasses niceness.

Forgive me, I've been too lazy (or, ahem, reallllly busy) to do the in-depth research about the root of the word "kind", but it seems like it is somehow related to words like "kin, kindred" etc. That's how I got my little epiphany.

When you are kind to someone, you are saying "I recognize we are kindred, we are related, we are of the same kind." It's looking beyond age, gender, race, sexual orientation and every other possible difference and acknowledging that we are all connected.

When I looked up "kind" in the thesaurus, "nice" wasn't even listed as a synonym! Niceness may tolerate you, but kindness accepts you... loves you because you are family.

Kindness is putting namaste into action.