This is Sara, and I remember the time 20 years ago when I got schooled by a psychoanalyst. It must have been the fall, because I was supremely agitated that I was having to write, design, and send holiday cards out to a huge list of people all by myself, without the help of my fiancé. If you know me, you know that cards were a staple of my winter growing up, with cards from my parents’ friends stapled onto long felt ribbons hanging down each doorway, surrounding us with love and smiling faces for weeks on end. The therapist asked if I could just not do them, if it was annoying me so much, and my instant fury was revealed: Are you kidding? I have to send these cards out, it’s the nice thing to do!! Cut to the point, and it’s this - nice according to who? Nice for whom? Certainly not nice for me if I were going to be resentful and pissy about it. I came to terms with the fact that I actually just really enjoyed writing and sending cards out to people who warmed my heart that year, and that my partner wasn’t a nice person for not agreeing to send these cards out with me.
But it leads us to ask this. What do we mean by niceness - and what, more importantly, is its not-as-related-as-it-seems and so much more important character trait of kindness? How can understanding this difference and leaning into kindness help us be better people?
What to listen for:
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How a medically trained doctor got into a “touchy-feely” thing like kindness
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The shockingly tremendous impact that kindness has on our individual health and our societal wellbeing
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