We're Kinder Than We Think

Editor's Note: Connie Schultz is off. The following column originally was published in August 2009.

Kindness takes courage, which is why it's usually a child who reminds us of its power.

Sydney was not yet 3 when she and her mom visited us from Florida. She was in our kitchen, kneeling over our pug with the reverence of a faith healer, when my 18-year-old daughter, Cait, walked into the room and pulled out a chair to sit down. It was a cramped space in our old kitchen, and my daughter banged her knee for the umpteenth time on the table leg.

"Ow," she said.

Sydney immediately stood up, walked over and placed her hand on Cait's knee.

"You OK?" she said, her eyes locked with my daughter's.

Cait smiled and placed her hand over Sydney's. "Yes, I'm OK, Syd."

"You sure?" Sydney asked.

"I'm sure."

Cait and I both looked at Sydney's mom, who shook her head as if amazed by her own child. "She's been that way ever since she could talk," she said. "She just has a kindness about her."

Four years later, it's a memory that lingers. After reading a new book titled "On Kindness," I think I know why.

The authors, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and historian Barbara Taylor, make the case for the children among us: They "begin their lives 'naturally' kind," but then "something happens to this kindness as they grow up in contemporary society."

Over time, our hearts harden, in part because kindness has become a sign of weakness, "the saboteur of the successful life," they write. In the process, we become increasingly detached and lonely. Inevitably, we start to believe in our own lack of goodness.

"The origins of self-hatred are often to be found in failures of kindness," they write. The good news is that "kindness is not an expert skill." We can practice it at any moment, on just about anyone. Even when we bungle, we grow.

"Real kindness is not a magic trick, a conjuring away of every hateful or aggressive impulse in favor of a selfless dedication to others," they write. "It is an opening up to others that ...

enlarges us."

In my home, a wooden angel, about 3 feet tall, stands propped against the wall in the center hallway. It won me over with its lopsided wings and the message painted across its chest: "Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss your life."

When I bought it, I was thinking of the contrarians in my life, the people who challenge me to be more patient. Every time I passed that angel, I tried to remind myself: Blessed are the challengers.

Lately, though, my soul is startled awake, not so much by outrage or frustration, but by others' unexpected acts of kindness. At such moments, I often feel the sting of tears I cannot explain.

What does that say about me? Do I find most days too brutal? Or do I fear I'm becoming more disconnected from my own spirit of generosity? Surely, the latter is far more frightening, but it is also within my control to change.

The authors are right, I think, that children have much to teach us about kindness. Another memory of an almost 3-year-old, this one my daughter.

I was reading, as I recall. Cait was playing in her miniature kitchen across the room, chatting at the dozen or so dolls and stuffed animals seated like a theater audience in the round.

Lost in my own thoughts, I didn't notice when she stopped talking and padded over to my side of the sofa.

"Mommy," she whispered, her hands reaching toward my face. "Mommy."

I set my book in my lap and leaned over until we were nose-to-nose. She cupped my face with her hands and said, still in a whisper, "Mommy, I'm glad I picked you."

Nineteen years later, I still hear that little voice whenever it hits me that I'm rushing past someone who deserves more from me. The 3-year-old's whisper reminds me that the trajectory of my kindness is always up to me.

At such moments — and they are still too rare — I turn to the friend or stranger and silently say, "I pick you."

Then I pray for the courage of a child.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House, "Life Happens" and "... and His Lovely Wife." She is a featured contributor in a recently released book by Bloomsbury, "The Speech: Race and Barack Obama's 'A More Perfect Union.'" To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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