At some point in my life…well, I don’t need to be vague. It was after my marriage ended. I started to value honesty more than kindness. I would much rather someone be honest with me than kind to me, although being both is certainly a nice bonus. Over the past decade, my search for honesty has left me pretty cynical and jaded. There’s so little of it out there. I’ve just come to accept that most people have responded to the traumas and uncertainties in their lives by rejecting hard truths and coasting on a winding river of ever-changing illusions and manipulations. I don’t really hold it against them, but it makes them fundamentally unreliable. I have catastrophic trust issues.
But a byproduct of all this is that, in my mostly futile search for honesty, I have come to undervalue kindness, both in others and in myself. It’s been years since I put any real effort or thought into being kind. I mean, I have manners, I’m not an asshole (usually). But just as I would prefer someone be honest with me than kind, I’ve focused on seeking out and expressing truths and not given much thought to nurturing kindness in myself.
But objectively, I know that kindness matters. And I know that it matters a lot more to most people than it does to me.
So my New Year’s resolution this year is to become a kinder person. Not just to act more kindly, but to somehow find my way back to the part of me that valued and appreciated kindness. I kind of miss being that person, although I certainly don’t miss the naïveté that motivated me back then.
Is it possible to be both irredeemably cynical and genuinely, authentically kind?
Let’s find out!
An Invincible Summer 