Have you ever pulled back from doing something kind because you were worried that it would result in an outcome you didn’t want?
I’ve invented a word to describe that feeling. It’s a kind of anticipation of the phrase ‘No good deed goes unpunished…’ Kindread may make you reluctant to show kindness in the first place.
So, what do I mean? What are examples of kindread? Here’s a couple:
Your elderly neighbour needs help putting up some shelves. You go round and do a good job. You feel great. Then there’s another task which you help with. You feel good. Then another, and another and, all of a sudden, you’re an unpaid handyman with a feeling of obligation. Now you don’t feel good.
Or, on your way to work, you smile at a stranger in your queue for the bus – a kind thing to do. Over the next few days, you exchange greetings. Which becomes small talk. Before long, you’ve got a ‘bus friend’ who you feel obliged to sit next to and chat with. After a while, you realise that you don’t really like them that much and start to dread your journey to work. Before long, your whole morning routine has changed – you’re either getting up early to take an earlier bus, or going a completely different way to work! Bonkers.
My recent personal experiences are nowhere near as bad as those, but have left me with a milder version of those feelings. I don’t want anyone to think I’m some kind of ingrate. I’m not. I just didn’t want the outcome I got.
My partner, Rachael, knows Pearl*, an elderly and frail widow in our village, and her daughter, Sharon*. Last summer, Pearl told Rachael that, since her husband died, her large garden was becoming overgrown and she couldn’t keep it under control. Long story short, I popped over and spent a couple of days cutting the weeds down for her. Although it was really hard work, what kept me going was knowing that Pearl would benefit.
Pearl is from that generation that doesn’t expect something for nothing and wanted to pay me. I also understood that it might have been her way of showing kindness to me, so I needed to be mindful of that – but I just didn’t want any money.
She was as determined to give me money as I was for her not to but, at the risk of offending her, I eventually agreed to the compromise of a donation to Kiltti’s website launch party. A donation which, I later learned, was most generous.
Fast forward five months and there is a knock at my door. It’s Pearl. She’s sorry to bother me but she thinks one of her car tyres is a bit flat so would I mind taking a look? Of course I don’t mind. Turns out one of her tyres is dangerously low on air pressure and there is no way she can drive on it safely. I give her two options: I can put the spare on but she must go straight to the garage and get the leaking tyre replaced, or; I can pump up the tyre but she must go straight to the garage and get it replaced.
She chooses the second option and I get my electric pump from my car, plug it into her car, and re-inflate the tyre. It takes two minutes. I take another five minutes to make sure the tyre isn’t rapidly deflating and is safe to drive on, and I send her on her way.
I feel good. And I’ve already been rewarded in a couple of ways. Firstly, I was able to help her safely on her way. Secondly, I now know that she is comfortable to ask me for help if she needs it. Those two things make me feel good. Me feeling good is a very rare thing and, therefore, precious to me.
A couple of hours later, there is a knock on the door. It is Pearl. On the doorstep, she hands me an envelope with a card in it and tells me it’s thanks for earlier. I thank her and off she goes. As I walk to the kitchen to open the card, I think to myself that it is really sweet that Pearl took the time to buy me a thank-you card.
I open the card. Inside the card is a gift voucher. For an amount that is way too much – especially for how little time and effort it was for me to help her. Converting it to an hourly rate, she could just as well have asked a solicitor to pump up her tyre! Now I feel crap. Suddenly, all the joy I felt because of my kind act has evaporated.
Maybe it’s just me. It could be that most of you out there would have been delighted by the generous gift. Some of you reading this will, no doubt, be thinking that I should just accept the gift (which I have) and think no more about it (which I haven’t). It’s just that putting a monetary value on an act of kindness, conversely for me, cheapens it – irrespective of the amount.
[The secondary aspect of this was that there is a vulnerable, elderly lady in the village who is, in my opinion, being far too generous with her money when rewarding me for things I’ve done for her. I am thankful that Rachael is good friends with her daughter, Sharon, and she has been notified on both occasions that Pearl has given me money.]
I know it is Pearl’s way of showing appreciation, but I don’t want it. I certainly don’t want it to make me reluctant to be kind to her in future. The only way to overcome my reluctance is to remind myself that being kind isn’t just doing what somebody would like you to do. If there is an outcome I don’t want (but can predict) I can be assertive, but nice, and tell them firmly and politely what my boundaries are.
So, if I’m uncomfortable getting money for being kind, what do I want, if anything? Is there some kind of acceptable kindness exchange rate?
I’ve really thought long and hard about this. At first, I genuinely thought that I wanted nothing and that kindness should be its own, self-contained, reward. My ideal would be that the recipient of kindness is kind to someone else; if you really want to show your appreciation, be kind to someone else. All of a sudden, though, my kindness starts to feel like it comes with terms and conditions.
I certainly didn’t think that I wanted anyone to feel any sense of indebtedness as the recipient of a kind act. But, is that the truth? Well, no, actually it isn’t. Partly because wanting or expecting anything - even kindness - as a response to kindness is a form of indebtedness but also because, when it boils down to it, I do actually want some acknowledgement that what I did was appreciated. Not much. A smile will do. That’s why I was okay with the card, but not the contents. (I was actually more than happy before the card, because Pearl had said thanks at the time.)
Maybe we do all each have our own individual kindness exchange rate mechanisms, after all?
Here in Britain, there is a really common example - on the roads. We are, generally, reasonably considerate drivers and we will often stop to let someone into a busy line of traffic, or let someone pass on a narrow country road. And we’re happy to do this. But, boy oh boy does it grind our gears if we don’t get thanked for it! If we don’t get some form of recognition for that act - a nod, a wave, a flash of lights – it can turn a smile into a scowl instantly. And it’s just that tiny wave that makes the world of difference.
Talking of a world of difference, Covid has made many of us familiar with the ‘R’ number – the reproduction number which determines how quickly the contagion is likely to spread throughout the community. Anything above 1 is a problem when it comes to something so dangerous.
But what I’d really, really like in this world is a kindness ‘r’ number above 1 so that kindness spreads rapidly.
This might blow your mind: If I was kind to just 2 people one day, and the next day each of them was kind to just 2 other people (meaning the kindness ‘r’ number was 2), then if that pattern continued it would only take 27 days for the whole population of the UK – about 67 million people– to have been treated kindly. Less than a month. And only 34 days for the entire population of the world. Now that really would be some reward.
So that’s what I’m putting out there: if I’m kind to you, all I really want in return is for you to be kind when you can. Oh, and a wave of acknowledgement when I let you in in traffic.
*names changed to respect privacy (Pearl & Sharon)
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