Conquer them with Kindness

 Times are tough. There is so much conflict in the world. We feel more divided than united. . Right now, feels like the perfect time to say that humans are cruel and have no hope. I would like to stop you right there. 

Below I will be telling you about a short story I read called "what men live" by Leo Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He was a soldier in Crimean war and had seen the harshness of war. He still write this story about humanity. It has to be one of the best short stories I have ever read and I would recommend it to all of you. This story might help revive your faith in us.

In this story, there are 3 questions about mankind whose answer needs to be found by a man.

The first question is “What dwells in humans?” What is one quality that all humans inherently have? The answer is LOVE. We all love to love. And whenever I think about how important love is, I remember one of my most favourite books called Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. For those who don’t know about Tuesdays with Morrie, it is again a great read. It contains conversations between a dying professor and his old college student. They talk about life and Morrie gives very valuable life advice and puts things in perspective. Morrie cherished love and believed it to be the center of human life. He says,

“Love is the only rational act”. 

Even though people say the world is so much harsher now and people have become cruel, I see stories of kindness where strangers help out each other.  This makes me believe in us. 

I recently did a webinar with Hyderabad runners where the guest was Naresh Kumar. . He is a solo adventurist. He cycled from Bombay to Germany on cycle alone and depended just on his determination to finish and the kindness of strangers. Random people on the way helped him and also shared their personal stories with him. This love from people helped him get through the times when he didn't think he could make it. Be it Kazakhstan or New Zealand, people were kind to him. They could have taken advantage of his vulnerability and the fact that they didn't shows that we all are good at heart.

From personal experiences too, when I went on a trek, we were given food from villagers in places where it is so hard to get anything. Even without much to offer, they opened their hearts and homes to us. The hospitality shown by them really touched my heart because even when we have everything, we find it difficult to share but them laying everything they have on the table to someone they might never see again and don't know is absolutely incredible to me.

One specific incident I remember was when I fell uneasy during the trek and had to descent to our previous camping spot with my parents while everyone continued. We met shephards on our camping spot who were about 75 years old. They were away from their village to herd the sheep and had limited food and supplies with them and if they had to get anything more, they would have to trek an entire day to the nearest village to get it. Still they willingly shared their food with us and offered to help. We did give them money but they did this without expecting anything in return.

These stories and experiences make me believe we are all capable of love and kindness. 

Another important concept is of accepting love too. Like I talked about in one of my previous blogs about Mental Health ( find the link here) ,We sometimes think we don’t deserve love which makes us shut off people who love us and not accept love from them. We all deserve love.

The second question whose answer we need is “What is not given to men?”. Now before you start thinking about the Material things you don’t have, let me tell you that the answer is the “knowledge of our own needs”. We all map out our lives, what we want to do next year, in the next 10 years, in the next 20 years, etc. However, we don’t know what we will need at that time. 2020 was a perfect example of that. We all had plans to travel and bought clothes for that beforehand , however little did we know what we needed were more sets of sweatpants! We live so much in the future that we forget to live in the present. I am not saying that don’t plan for your future but be ready for anything because life is unpredictable and not everything is in our control/ Who knows what will happen hereafter?

The third question is What men live by? How are we still alive? We survive because humans not only care about themselves but cares about others too. We think we can survive independently without anyone’s help. However life is not only an upward graph. It comes down and you will need others. Even in everyday life, I am sure you can recall the times someone was kind to you and how that keeps you going till now. We all have compassion in us and that is why the human race is still existing.

During these tough times, it is anecdotes and beliefs like this that can help during the times where you are feeling helpless in the world. 

There feeling that there is no hope in the future for any of us. I can't tell you that things will be better because no one knows. Nonetheless, we need to keep moving forward and hope for the best. That is why we are not given foresight, so we cannot know what happens next. We are dependent in one way or the other on the kindness of others. This way we look forward to a better tomorrow together.

Kindness and love is what the world needs

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention”

—Kahlil Gibran

Be kind to everyone because you don’t know their story. Accept others for who they are, accept their opinions even if they don’t match yours. Accept differences, if you can't do that, respect it and tolerate it because we all are different but also we are nothing without one another. If we do this, this world will be a beautiful place for all of us to live in. 

This conversation between Morrie and Mitch albom summarizes it pretty well

Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't.

You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.

A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.

Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.

A wrestling match. He laughs. Yes, you could describe life that way.

So which side wins, I ask?

Which side wins? He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.

Love wins. Love always wins.”