Kindness continued

 4. There’s a link between kindness and well-being

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that people who regularly receive lots of acts of kindness have higher levels of well-being. But the study also found that people who carry out more kind acts or even just notice that other people are carrying out kind acts also have higher levels of well-being on average. This fits in with lots of previous research showing that acting kindly makes us feel good.

5. Extroverts give and receive more kindness

Personality had a big impact on how often people said they are kind to others, but also on how kind people are to them. A personality scale was included in The Kindness Test and the people who were kindest were more likely to score high on extroversion, and also on agreeableness and openness. People who score high on openness are imaginative and curious and like having new experiences.

Of course, these are averages, so you can be quiet and not keen on new experiences, but still be very kind!

6. People see more acts of kindness at home than anywhere else

When we asked people where kindness takes place, the home came top, followed by medical settings, the workplace, green spaces and shops. The places where people saw the fewest kind acts were online, on public transport and in the street.

The good news was that people generally agreed that kindness was valued at work, especially in social work, healthcare, hospitality and education.

7. Women carry out slightly more kind acts on average and so do people who are religious

Of course, we have to rely on self-reports in this study, so there is a possibility that women and religious people feel that they ought to say that they are kind in order to look good. But plenty of people are prepared to admit they’re not very generous, for example, and previous studies have shown that we are quite good at judging our own levels of kindness. So, I’m inclined to take people at their word.

8. We worry about our offers of kindness being misinterpreted

People were asked what might stop them from being kind and the top reason they gave was that they were afraid their actions might be misinterpreted. People also said that they didn’t have enough time to be as kind as they’d like to be, and half said social media played a part in stopping them from being kinder.

9. People who talk to strangers see and receive more kindness

What’s interesting about this one, is that this difference between those who do and don’t talk to strangers, persisted even when personality was considered. So, it’s not just that extroverts are more likely to be kind and also, because they’re extroverts, more likely to talk to strangers. Whatever personality you have, the more you talk to strangers, then on average the more kindness you receive, but also the more kindness you notice going on around you.

10. Income makes little difference to how kind people are

How much money people earn had zero correlation with overall reports of being kind. But we did also ask people to imagine they had received an unexpected windfall of £850 and how much of it they might give away. While some were honest enough to say none of it, the average amount people said they would give away was £252. People with the lowest incomes tended to say they would give away lower amounts on average, which makes sense because they could least afford to, but interestingly the people with the highest incomes also gave away the least.

Kindness

When I was teaching in the 80s until I retired in 2006, at the beginning of each year, I gave my senior students the following assignment to help welcome junior students to the school. Each senior was to find a junior student they did not know, make eye contact and smile. They were to not speak, just make eye contact and smile, every time they saw the junior student.

The senior students were at first uncomfortable but as time went on, they became more relaxed. The junior students, when I talked to them, said that they felt really welcomed at the school and that the senior students were nice and kind. The world’s largest in-depth study into kindness, the Kindness Test, led by Professor Robin Banerjee at the University of Sussex was launched on BBC Radio 4 in 2021. More than 60,000 people from 144 countries chose to take part. Here are some things they learned from the study. We believe the world is not a kind place and the newspapers, TV and Radio news re-enforce this perception every day, but the results of the kindness survey say differently.

1. Kind acts are very common

Three-quarters of people told us they received kindness from close friends or family quite often or nearly all the time. And when we asked about the most recent time someone was kind to them, 16% of people said it was within the last hour and a further 43% said it was within the last day. Whatever people’s age or wherever they lived, kindness was very common.

2. The most common kind of action is to help people when they ask

You don’t have to scale Everest for charity or save someone from a burning building (wonderful as these acts both are) to practise kindness in everyday life and to make a difference to people. Our study shows how everyday most acts of kindness are.

Helping people when they asked was the most commonly reported kindness. Next came doing favours for friends, opening doors to let people through, helping strangers to pick up things they’d dropped, followed by having concerned feelings for people less fortunate than them.

3. Two-thirds of the people think the pandemic has made us kinder

People who took part in The Kindness Test felt that in terms of their lifetimes, levels of kindness had either stayed the same (39%) or declined (36%). Yet the experience during the pandemic seems very different with two-thirds of people saying this unprecedented time made people kinder. Perhaps because it was so difficult, people took more time to look after each other and noticed the small kindnesses that can make such a difference.

Serrindipity

 A couple of days ago I participated in a ZOOM conference on the regrets of dying. One of the messages in the conference was that we should reach out and thank those who have helped us become the person we are today. I think the message is important as it helps us realize that others have impacted, our lives and I thought it might be important for those people to know the impact they have had on me. 

Are you a big believer in serendipity, I am. As I was thinking about how I could start to reach out to others, I received, about an hour after the workshop the following message:

Mr. Shook. You keep showing up on my Facebook page. I don’t know if you would remember me or not. Many, many, years ago. My name was ….and in the 70’s I went to West Whalley. You were my homeroom teacher for my duration there, my typing teacher, and my commercial art teacher, I think. (I was.)

I would like to thank you for being the wonderful type of teacher that stands out in one’s mind through the years. You were always so kind. And most teenagers at that age are difficult to deal with. As I was. Lol. Thank you, you were a wonderfully supportive teacher and I think people should know they have done a wonderful job when deserved. Hats off to you sir. You have always been remembered!!!

I did remember her, and I responded to her and said thanks for the kind thoughts. 

I believe that if I don’t follow through and reach out to others there will be consequences, so I will be reaching out to those who helped me or who I was friends with and with whom I lost touch over the years. Life is too short to ignore messages that come out of the blue.

Empathy

There is not enough empathy in the world today, so here are some quotes to remind us how important this is for us:

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems. Stephen Covey

Empathy is about standing in someone else's shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place. Daniel H. Pink

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” 
― James Baldwin

“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.” 
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.” 
― Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?” 
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems.
Stephen Covey

All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.
Tahereh Mafi

Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.     
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.   Barbara Kingsolver

Empathy depends not only on one's ability to identify someone else's emotions but also on one's capacity to put oneself in the other person's place and to experience an appropriate emotional response.
Charles G. Morris

I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization
Roger Ebert

You know, there's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit - the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us - the child who's hungry, the steelworker who's been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this - when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers - it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help. 
Barack Obama

Empathy is a powerful behavior of nurturing. When it is given properly, the receiver can feel that the giver really cares about them, and that what they are going through is not trivial. 
William E. Krill

True empathy is always welcomed, compared with sympathy which may be rejected, because of an implicit or deliberate act of movement 'towards', rather than 'being with' and almost 'being one with'.
Murray Cox

What dooms our best efforts to cultivate empathy and compassion is always, of course, other people.
Kim Kreider

Investment advice

Investment Advice for Turbulent Times: 

Kindness pays HUGE dividends, materially and ethereally, forever and ever.