The Virtue of Kindness
It happened in the early days of the lockdown. As economic activity came to a sudden standstill, daily wage earners began to struggle to make ends meet. A friend’s NGO got into the act, and started to supply food packets to those affected. And the wife decided to help with raising money to support their efforts.
One morning, she was busy making calls to friends and family. Telling them about the plight of daily wage earners. And about the friend’s NGO that was helping them. And she asked them to contribute to what was clearly a good cause. And as she put the phone down, something interesting happened. Our maid, who’d been living with us for two decades, came up to my wife and gave her a hundred rupees. It was her contribution to help those in need. We were touched. And it brought home a universal truth. Giving has nothing to do with how much you have. It’s about wanting to give. Wanting to help other people.
Most of us get caught up in our own worlds, and we have no time for other people. Giving then does not come easy. We tell ourselves, ‘when I become a millionaire, I will give away 10%’. Truth is, if you can’t give away a 100 bucks today, you will find it impossible to give away a 100,000 later in life.
As I thought about it, I was reminded of a lesson from the world’s richest man: Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. In his commencement address to Princeton’s class of 2010, Bezos shared a little story from his childhood. He talked about the time when he was ten years old and on a road trip with his grandparents. His grandfather was driving, with his grandmother sitting in front. She smoked all through the journey and Jeff hated the smell.
Sitting on the back seat, he recalled seeing an ad about how every cigarette puff took away two minutes of your life. As a kid who enjoyed puzzles and mental math, he quickly did the numbers in his head for his grandmother. Satisfied he had found the right answer, he leaned forward and announced, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life grandma.” He thought his grandparents would be proud of his math wizardry. He thought they'd pat him on the back. But something strange happened. His grandmother began to cry.
His grandfather pulled over and got off the car. He then got young Jeff out too. And as the young Bezos wondered what was coming next, his grandfather said to him: ““Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.” And those words stayed with Bezos. And as he went on to explain to the students at Princeton, cleverness is a gift. Kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy. Choices are tough. Our lives are really all about the choices we make.
As our maid’s gesture reminded us, the Bezos lesson is one we all need to take to heart. We spend most of our lives trying to be clever. Not kind. It’s harder to be kind than clever. But guess what? It's more satisfying too. Giving a little can bring us all more joy than what we may experience with having a lot. Try it.
Be kind. Discover the joy of giving.
