If there's one religion we can all practice, it's Kindness. Kindness has no boundaries, no class distinctions, no racial differences. Best of all, it has no language barrier; everyone recognizes a helping hand, in every country and continent. The instinct to help is as ingrained as love itself. And when you think about it, kindness is very much in the family of love — love of our fellow man. We're all part of a larger community when we go out of our way to show kindness to our brethren. And indeed, we are our brother's keeper.

Just today, as I was getting into a car, someone came over (totally out of the blue, as far as I was concerned!) and offered to close the car door for me. His kindness may have been inspired by my new pink lipstick, but it hadn't a whiff of romance in it. And we'll probably never see each other again — New York being the king of unexpected meetings. But I won't forget his small offer of help — just as I recall the Danish man who refused to be reimbursed for the coffee and cake he bought for me during a stopover on the boat train to Stockholm. For sure, we won't meet again (we wouldn't recognize each other even if we did), but his kindness is forever in my memory bank and makes it likelier that I will continue the circle and help someone else along the way. Kindness is contagious.

With the large throughput in people's social lives, the unmarried are particularly well-positioned to dispense kindness. Their biggest chance comes in the world of dating, where so much hurt is inflicted by a mindless retort. Men are the ones who usually climb out on a limb, vulnerable for rejection. So my advice to women is to imagine themselves in the man's place. That will help to morph hurtful rejection into more tolerable refusal. Women need to know the vulnerability of always being the one who does the asking, always making the first move, always being the active one. And asking them to walk in a man's shoes gets them to a kinder, gentler place. All at once, they seem to get it! We're loath to surrender our fortified passivity, but in the real world, women are learning that hanging back and waiting for someone else's forward move isn't exactly business protocol.

Yes, kindness is circling the globe like some delicious new confection. Out of need or out of protocol, the gentler stance is making more sense than the bluff and bluster of yesteryear. And we women are the ambassadors ushering it into our hearts — and homes. The soft touch reaches the hearts. Always. Yes, I am my brother's keeper. Always and forever.

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