Being Kind

Posted on February 27, 2021 by David Fine, One of Thousands of Relationship Coaches on Noomii.

Being Kind

Many of us worry about hurting others with the truth. Look at the following scenarios:

· A friend or relative shows up at our door step unannounced and we don’t know how to tell them to leave.

· We are dating someone and really don’t want to see them anymore but don’t want to hurt their feelings.

· We are about to fire an employee and continually put it off as we are afraid we will devastate them.

In all the above scenarios we really believe we have the power to hurt another person with our words. We think we are being kind by not telling them the truth.

So for a moment let’s look at each of the above situations.

Scenario 1: A relative or friend shows up at our doorstep unannounced. In reality we want them to leave and we think we are being kind by putting up with them. Are we really being kind?

If we are the unannounced relative or friend would we really want the host to put up with us and when we leave curse and swear about how we disrupted their day, or would we rather them tell us the truth? “It is great to see you and that you are thinking of us, but we are too busy to have visitors today”. As the unannounced visitor or friend, we might be slighted at first and if we stay slighted that is our problem not theirs. They have been “kind” by telling us the truth.

Scenario 2: We want to stop dating someone. We feel if we tell them the truth we will hurt them and believe they will hate us forever. We would rather be unhappy going out with someone we don’t enjoy then tell them the truth. We think we are being kind.

So again let’s put ourselves in the other person’s position. Here we are dating someone who does not like being with us. Would we rather the person tell us the truth so we can move on or would it be better to be with someone who does not want to be with us and stays with us out of pity? We want the truth. The truth is being kind. The truth allows the rejected person to move on and find someone who truly loves them.

Scenario 3: We have to fire an employee but we put it off. We think we are being kind by prolonging their stay and we don’t want to be seen as “bad people”. Once more we are being kind, or so we think.

So we put ourselves in the other person’s place. Here we are working for someone who doesn’t value us and doesn’t want us to be around. We will never get another raise or promotion as our worth isn’t what this company is looking for. We deserve the truth. With the truth we can go find the right job and know that hopefully our new bosses respect our work and recognize our worth. We might even realize that we aren’t on the right career path in our present job and we realign ourselves to the type of career that truly reflects our talents. The truth is being kind. The truth will set the terminated person free.

“Being kind is telling the truth”.