Being kind or being right?

Mark Twain once said “kindness is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see”.

We’ve all had that moment when we decide on a matter that affects another person. It’s a difficult decision especially when it comes to work. Rules and regulations define what one needs to do. Or not do.

Often times things happen beyond our control. We can’t predict what happens in other people’s lives. An illness that debilitates a close family member, a family or someone who goes through difficult times, or worse, a death that leaves us devastated.

In the workplace, life goes on regardless of the circumstances. Upper management would always tell you to leave your problems at home. But how do you work well if issues at home hound your mind while you’re working?

In a relationship, at times we have difficulty sharing problems. Either others wouldn’t care or are looking out for themselves. It’s depressing to face your problems alone. After all, one is a lonely number.

Of course one can argue that people abuse kindness. But let’s keep it real and let karma pay back these low life creatures.

So here’s the rub. When is kindness more important than being right?

It’s a fair reminder that when people think that in the middle of their chaos, there was you to lean on, being kind will always be the right thing to do.

Kindness, after all, is an eight letter word that’s someone else’s Relative Joy.

Finding Happy

Sometimes your heart needs more time to accept what your mind already knows.

We all want to be happy.

Here’s the catch.  The world isn’t kind enough to grant this wish all the time.

Take the parents who’ve wanted a child for the last ten years.  After so many attempts, they finally have a baby, only to discover that he has congenital birth defects.  No matter what the quality of life of this child will be, or how short-lived it is, there is no doubt that both parents and child will share that relative joy.

Or the husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend or lifetime partners who are going through confusing times need to resolve their relationship issues.  Being unhappy in a relationship that attempts to struggle at staying together because one does not want to hurt another one’s feelings is unfair for both parties.

People are miserable by nature. It doesn’t take a lot to make someone happy.  The poor store clerk who stole a can of canned good because he was hungry, the old woman who begs at the doorstep of the church to buy medicines for an ailing husband, the rich teenager who seems to have every material thing he could want for but has parents who are separated and feels unloved, the beautiful actress who is popular and yet is suffering from cancer. Yes, we are all miserable by nature.  But finding happiness is our purpose in life.

Finding happy starts with our disposition.  We all have crosses to bear. They are of equal magnitude.  Only the circumstances differ. Until we’ve felt hunger like the boy or heartache like the woman whose whole family suffered a catastrophic demise, or unloved and lonely in this world, we really won’t know what it feels like to be happy.

I am not an inspirational writer. And I am not writing this to give you advice. I’m writing this to make you realise that we all have challenges in our lives. It’s normal to be angry, go into denial, bargain with God or the devil, then finally accept our fate.

Learn to accept what the mind already knows. The heart will adapt. No matter how painful it takes to be happy.