Ten Kindness Commandments
A Listicle to Live By
It was not until I began writing Shelf Life that I learned how quickly Thursday comes around after Tuesday. One of my resolutions for 2021 is to be farther ahead on writing, so I’m looking forward to breaking that one in the days to come.
Before I sign off to spend a few days enjoying family stuff in a socially distant and responsible way I wanted to deliver some promised content. In both Kindness Confidential and Toward Kindness Equilibrium, I discussed the importance of committing acts of kindness regularly. Not just because you help others out by doing something kind for them, nor only because you feel good yourself when you have been kind to someone, but also because doing so helps you maintain a kind mindset. If you are actively thinking about how to do something kind every day, you train your brain to be on the lookout for places where you can inject kindness into everyday life. You’ll become alert to those opportunities over time, and your social circle will become a kinder place.
As I’ve mentioned before, I try to do one kind thing each day on average. In a month with 31 days, I try to do 31 kind things total—even if I don’t get to one for every single day. A lot of times, opportunities present themselves and I can step in and react to them. Other times, I have to create an opportunity. Over time, I’ve compiled a list of ten things that are quick, super easy, and totally free to show a little kindness to a friend, friendly acquaintance, or even a stranger. Herewith, for your kindness-war-waging consideration, that annotated list.
Give a Sincere Compliment
This is one of the very easiest things to do. Identify someone who could use a boost, anyone, and give them a targeted compliment. Make sure it’s a real and relevant one, something you like and admire about them. It doesn’t have to be extravagant or even recent. There’s no statute of limitations on compliments.
Throw a dart at the board of people you know and I’m sure you can come up with one or two things you consistently admire about that person, or something they impressed you with a while ago but you never said anything about, or something they’ve changed recently that you’ve noticed.
One thing to look out for: If the context is work-related for anyone—for example if you’re speaking to a coworker or to a service provider—then use caution when making compliments about physical appearance. It depends on your relationship to the person, but generally speaking be careful about discussing someone’s physical appearance in their workplace, even in a complimentary way. Be conscientious about uneven power dynamics. Complimentary comments about personal style are safer than complimentary comments about body characteristics.
By the way, if you're a supervisor of personnel, giving sincere compliments to your reports for good work they have done is not an act of kindness. It’s part of your job.
Ask for a Recommendation
I can’t say this is 100% universal, but most people enjoy giving recommendations to people they know. If you heard a song you like, or read a cool book, or saw a great movie, then it’s natural to want to share that with your friends and acquaintances so that they can enjoy it too (one hopes) and also maybe so you can get some credit for having discovered something cool. If you’re on the market for a new book to read, or an album to listen to, or a movie or show to watch, or whatever, consider reaching out to a friend and giving them the joy of making a recommendation to you.
Give them some guidance to help them hit a home run with their rec (for instance, “I’m looking for a good book, a space opera would be perfect, read any good ones lately?”). Make sure you’re actually prepared to read or watch or listen to the thing they suggest. And make sure to take note of who recommended the content to you, so that you can reach out later and thank them for their rec after you check it out.
Demonstrate Your Interest in Their Project
Everybody is doing cool stuff all the time. I just scrolled down from the top of my social feed and I saw:
The friend who is building an algorithm to identify and root out Russian bots on social;
The friend who recently relaunched her Etsy shop;
The friend who has opened three businesses since I saw her last;
The friend who just spent all day transforming her apartment into a Christmas wonderland;
The friend who is starting an entertainment business organizing fire-spinning shows.
In that order. Most of the people you know probably have some kind of personal project, work project, side hustle, or passion that they’d love the chance to talk about. Touching base with them to see how their project is going is a great way to give them a chance to brag on themself a bit. I also find when someone talks to me about Shelf Life I end up with at least one new idea for a future article, so when that happens it’s fun for me and also productive and helpful. The conversation might give them a chance to talk through their ideas and plans, and your questions might inspire them to think of new ideas and avenues to explore.
Offer a Helping Hand
If someone in your social circle is struggling with something or just has something going on that you could help with—and you know that you have the personal bandwidth to help—consider extending an offer of assistance. One of my personal ones is resumes. If I hear that someone is on the job market, I try to offer my assistance with proofreading, editing, or even totally reworking their resume. That usually amounts to a couple hours of work for me but it can make a huge difference for a person who doesn’t have a lot of writing and editing background or who hasn’t reviewed resumes as part of their work experience.
Whatever you’re offering, be willing to accept a “no.” It’s fine to press a little if someone says they don’t want to impose on you. But if someone declines your offer, don’t push it. Some people prefer to handle things on their own or just don’t feel comfortable accepting that help.
Show Your Appreciation
This one is along the same lines of delivering a compliment. Where a compliment focuses on someone’s qualities or accomplishments, the demonstration of appreciation focuses on showing gratitude for something they have done for you or others.
If someone has helped you out in the past, you probably said “thanks” at the time but you can show kindness by reaching out again, even after a long time, to tell them you remember their help and are still appreciative. I also really appreciate when my friends bring social issues or worthy charitable causes to my attention so I can educate myself or give support. Reaching out privately to thank them for raising awareness and doing that work for the social group is a way to be kind.
In my opinion, though, the most important time to demonstrate your sincere appreciation for someone is when they give you the opportunity to do better. If you make a mistake with someone, upset someone, hurt their feelings, whatever, and they call you out for that, you might experience a gut-level defensive reaction. I definitely do. That is normal for most people. Avoid reacting out of defensiveness, and when the feeling calms down consider whether the person who called you out was trying to embarrass you or help you. If the latter, then make sure you let them know that you appreciate their taking the time to help you do better.
Make a Mixtape
Rumors of the mixtape’s demise were greatly exaggerated. When I was growing up, making someone a mixtape of music and then presenting it to them was a universally understood gesture of esteem. You could give a mixtape to a friend or someone you wanted to befriend or a girl you liked to show them how cool you thought they were (and hopefully to also show off how cool you were). So much effort when into painstakingly taping songs off the radio, copying them from tape to tape using a dual cassette deck, and handwriting liner notes. Although cassette tapes and boomboxes are in short supply these days, there are still plenty of ways to make a mixtape.
Put together some songs that you think they would appreciate, or that remind you of your relationship with them, into a Spotify playlist and share it with them. Or curate a YouTube playlist of videos and clips. If you’re going the YouTube route, and if your relationship spans a long time, throw in some old advertisements as well (you always had a bit of radio DJ talking over the beginnings and ends of songs on your mixtapes, that was normal). And don’t forget to write them some fun liner notes!
Ask for Their Expertise
This is the marriage of asking for a recommendation and demonstrating interest in a project. If someone you know has expertise in an area, you can show your admiration for their expertise by asking them for an opinion or help that relates to their special area of mastery. That lets them know that you recognize their high level of competence with the skill or ability and that you trust them to give you guidance.
Use this one cautiously: You do not want to ask people to do free work for you! Let’s say you have a friend who is a graphic designer. Asking for their expertise might mean asking whether they can recommend a good graphics software suite for a beginner to learn on, or if they can recommend a good resource for learning about typefaces, or asking them if they wouldn’t mind looking at a couple of color palettes you’ve put together and telling you which one they like best. Asking them to teach you to use Photoshop or put together a color palette for you would be asking them to do free labor. Be very careful not to stray into that dangerous territory—and this goes double if the person you are asking belongs to a marginalized group of people.
Draw Them a Picture
I am not good at drawing things. Let me put that right out there. Next Tuesday’s article will touch upon why that is. I can only draw something if I’m looking right at it, and even then it has to be extremely simple for me to be able to reproduce it in a recognizable way. I still enjoy doodling, though, and even more complicated things, for my friends and acquaintances. It doesn’t have to be the Mona Lisa. It need not even be an illustration. One of the things I recently sent to a friend was a calendar with moon phases for the month that was about to begin, “for optimal mischief + witchery.” I also do a lot of laughably poor renditions of people’s pets.
In normal times, you can just give a little drawing to a friend when you see them next but right now nobody gets to see anybody so it’s a little tougher. You can drop your drawing into an envelope and mail it, but I promised free options and that costs $0.55. All you need to do is take a quick cell phone photo of your doodle and text or email it to the person you made it for. Save the original to give them when the world stops ending.
Make Time on Short Notice
I almost never have a day where I don’t have stuff planned out. Not everybody is like me, as my partner lets me know all the time—not everyone structures their time so rigidly. Even if my plans for a day don’t involve any other people—even if it’s all solitary stuff like catching up with my journal or getting ahead on Shelf Life or knocking out some non–Shelf Life writing—I do have a plan and I want things to go to plan.
When a friend reaches out and wants to chat, or play a quick game of Among Us, or get me to look something over for them, my inclination is to review my calendar for the next evening or day when I haven’t already scheduled something in, and ask them if that day works for them. But when I can, when I have some flexibility, I try to offer the spontaneous option—“How about right now?” That is a very concrete way of showing someone that they are a high priority for you. Everyone is busy. Making time for someone who needs some of yours is a great kindness.
Remember to be kind to yourself first, and don’t put off something that you really need to attend to—unless your friend is in an urgent situation—if it’s going to stress you out later.
Reach Out and Touch Someone
I saved the easiest one of all for last: Think about the people you know. If there’s someone you haven’t communicated with in awhile, reach out to them by phone, email, text, or social and just let them know that you were thinking about them and wanted to see how they were doing. I got an incredible letter earlier this year from a friend I hadn’t spoken to in many years. They just wanted to see how I was doing, and let me know how they were doing, catch up on the missing years, and reconnect. That’s been one of the best things about 2020, which by all accounts has been a trash fire year in most aspects.
It doesn’t take a lot of your time, or any of your money, to do these little things. But they can make a big difference in how somebody’s day or week or year is going. I feel like we’re on the brink of apocalypse. Kindness Apocalypse. You are patient zero. You read this article and now you’re infected. The kindness virus will take over your brain and reprogram you with a mission to go forth and infect others using the strategies outlined above. We’ve already seen some great evidence this year of how quickly Americans can spread a virus when we put our minds to it. Let’s get to work.
Two more articles to go till the bitter end . . . of the year 2020! And then more articles will be coming after that. Twenty-twenty-one articles. Up next, on the final Tuesday of this year 2020, an article that was personally requested by a very cool friend of mine: What it’s like to exist, and even write fiction, as a person who is totally blind inside the mind. I hope you will stop by next week to check it out. Have a very happy holiday tomorrow if Christmas is your jam! And a very happy Friday if it is not!
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I love all of the kindness posts. 🥰