None of us are immune from adversity.
At some point, we’ll be desperate for a moment of human kindness and connection; we’ll need someone who’d be willing to lend a helping hand without expecting anything in return. But for that to happen, we need a world that believes in kindness as the single most important skill for more meaningful lives and more caring, connected communities.
This is the world envisioned in Houston Kraft‘s Deep Kindness, a “book that takes an honest look at the gap between our belief in kindness and our ability to practice it well—and shows us how to put intention into action.” And the first step toward this goal is understanding the difference between the three types of kindness. Houston Kraft writes:
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“Please” and “Thank you.” Politeness and pleasantries. While certainly important and demonstrative of basic respect for others, these acts of Kindness aren’t necessarily changing anyone’s world. They keep the gears turning, but sometimes fail to acknowledge the bigger, broken machine.
Confetti Kindness
The mass-marketed, feel-good Kindness that I associate with bright colors, poppy news stories, and warm fuzzies like Pay-It-Forward coffee lines or other random acts.
Let me be clear from the start: I believe that both of these two Kindnesses are critical in a world craving gentleness and optimism. This book does not dismiss Confetti Kindness as outright wrong or bad — these actions of fun or generosity provide hope that people are doing good in a world that can sometimes feel bleak.
Almost always, they are rooted in good intentions and delivered in an earnest attempt to help. There is nothing inherently wrong with Confetti Kindness, but there is a more profound category of care that the world desperately needs.
Deep Kindness
The kind of kindness that overcomes selfishness and fear. The sort of generosity that expects nothing in return. The unconditional care that is given despite a person’s shortcomings or ugliness.
The commitment to consistent, thoughtful action that proves, over time, that your giving is not dependent on circumstance or convenience. Deep Kindness requires something more than politeness or even an honest desire to help — it requires careful self-reflection, profound courage, a willingness to be humbled, and hard-earned social and emotional skills.
Deep Kindness is the by-product of a whole lot of emotional intelligences coming together in concert to perform an action that may look externally simple but is quite internally complicated. It’s the kind that overcomes generational hate and champions justice. It’s the type of Kindness we must teach (and explore ourselves) if we are ever going to live in a world that is less divisive and more compassionate.
Houston Kraft reminds once again that Common Kindness and Confetti Kindness should not be dismissed. Their consistent, thoughtful exercise is foundational for Deep Kindness and helps you cultivate meaningful habits, get the “small wins,” and strengthen your courage for situations when kind action matters most. Then he talks about the skills necessary to develop Deep Kindness:
Deep Kindness requires empathy and perspective-taking. How am I supposed to give you something you truly need if I don’t attempt to understand what you need first?
Deep Kindness requires resilience. Do you know how much fortitude it takes to offer Kindness, get rejected, hurt, or laughed at, and return to give Kindness again? Grit is necessary for unconditional love in the face of adversity, cruelty, or conditions that would more naturally lend themselves to hate.
Deep Kindness requires courage. The willingness to take a great risk at personal cost, and expose yourself to judgment, mockery, or failure in order to demonstrate that you care. To extend your own ego to the wolves, knowing that perhaps there is someone who needs you on the far side of fear.
Deep Kindness requires forgiveness. It asks us to see others through the generous perspective of hope, and to believe that people are capable of growth. The unforgiving person sees others (and sometimes themselves) as incapable of change. Lifelong grudges are held because one or both parties stubbornly cling to the narrative “They meant to hurt me and always will.”
Quoting a line from A League of Their Own, Kraft concludes by saying that Deep Kindness is “supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” Complement with our articles on 10 reasons why kindness is important in our life, 5 best books on random acts of kindness, 3 best books on lovingkindness by Sharon Salzberg, and 100 best kindness quotes to improve mindfulness.
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