Awakening kindness

(Baonghean) - The Institute for Socio-Economic and Environmental Research (iSEE) is implementing a project, or more accurately a campaign, called "Living Kindly".

Hearing the project name is really interesting, because it touches on a rather painful issue in our society today, when people tend to treat each other less kindly.

The purpose and idea were clear, but when the project initiative team started implementing it, they found countless difficulties. The first difficulty was defining what kindness is, and then guiding each person towards the proposed kindness," said a member of the project initiative team.

Finally, creativity emerges from difficulty. The project took advantage of the superiority of the Internet, creating a website to solicit opinions on the concept of kindness with the introduction "kindness is...". From there, countless definitions emerged. Some people defined kindness in a grand way: Kindness is loving yourself, loving everyone. Others use a simple, practical meaning such as: Kindness is "waiting" at the right time, putting effort in the right place and not following the crowd.

After a week of kindness, along with activities such as seminars and exhibitions, the project has also figured out the path it must take. Instead of forcing people to follow the concept of kindness proposed by the project, the project has guided each person to personal kindness. “We live and act kindly for our own dignity. Once an action contradicts our values ​​and dignity, we do not do it. That is living kindly,” said Mr. Le Quang Binh, Director of iSEE Institute.

Simply put, what the project aims to do is to awaken the kindness that is latent in each individual, so that it has enough strength to resist other unkind behaviors.

Actually, this is not new. Director Tran Van Thuy (director of the documentary “Kindness Story”), the film that suggested iSEE to carry out this project, also expressed it in the film’s commentary, he said: “Kindness is inherent in every person, every family, every clan, every nation. Be persistent in awakening kindness, put it on the ancestral altar or on the national stage, because without it, a community, no matter how great its efforts and lofty its aspirations, is just nonsense.”

So why is it that kindness is inherent in every person, but in today's society it is increasingly rare? A thorough explanation would require a large-scale, meticulous social study. But it can be explained by the following phenomenon, which is the impact of the social environment leading to behavior.

A singer, when fined by the traffic police for not wearing a helmet, responded: "Why don't other people get caught for not wearing helmets?" That statement is completely wrong in the logical sense of the behavior, but it also reveals a social perspective related to kindness. Faced with a reality that requires personal kindness (such as helping someone in an accident, protecting the weak...), people easily think like: Why are there so many people seeing that scene, why do I have to do it and not them.

That thought gradually penetrates the subconscious, then becomes a standard of behavior. Obviously, if we reverse the problem of considering kind behavior as a personal responsibility, a voice of conscience instead of placing it in the social environment, comparing it with other members of society, then perhaps life will have more kind acts?!

Ho Viet Thinh

Hanoi