102 - The thing about kindness
A Christmas exhortation
It has been an interesting few weeks leading up to Christmas this year. I managed to catch a very horrid cold and between nursing myself back to health and wrapping Christmas gifts, I entertained myself with Christmas movies.
This year I decided to focus on Christmas classics and started with the original - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The original book was published sometime in the 1800s and since then there have been many adaptations but this was my first time watching any of them.
For those who have not watched, the story is about a very mean man -Mr Scrooge. We know he is mean because he doesn’t have any “Christmas spirit” and says “Bah humbug” when he is displeased. One Christmas he receives a visit from his old business partner who was just as mean as him before he died. The ghost of his old friend warns him that he is doomed to a miserable eternity if he continues to be mean to people. Scrooge is subsequently visited by three ghosts: The ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.
The ghost of Christmas past took him back in time to his childhood and he got to revisit some of his formative experiences. The ghost of Christmas present showed him how he was perceived by some of the people in his life, from distant family to employees and most of the feedback was not good. The ghost of Christmas Future showed him how his actions would impact the lives of those around him and ultimately end in a lonely death with no one at his funeral.
The visions had their desired effect and Mr Scrooge woke up a changed man on Christmas morning, much to the surprise of the entire village. He went around the village doing big and little acts of kindness which made all the villagers happy and we are left to assume that he lived happily ever after and did not die a lonely death.
As I made my Christmas movie rounds, I noticed a pattern. There’s usually a protagonist who lives a super fast-paced life or is known to be mean. This person then has an experience that reminds them of the Christmas spirit and they have a change of heart and start acting kindly towards people and live happily ever after with their friends and loved ones.
Kindness.
Judging by the Christmas movies, if I were to choose one word to summarise the spirit of Christmas, it would be Kindness. There’s something about Christmas time that tends to remind the world of the importance of kindness. Some of it might have to do with this age-old lore about a fat old man who goes around distributing gifts and how this has been incorporated into various cultures. From the bags of rice and cans of oil shared by employers to Secret Santa gift exchanges between friends, kindness is generally encouraged around Christmas time.
Personally, gift-giving is one of my favourite things about Christmas. I do the whole making a list and checking it multiple times. I go through my things and pick out useful items I do not use because I am a shameless regifter. I also have a habit of buying things I think my friends would like throughout the year, and then gather them up for wrapping at Christmas. I have an elaborate wrapping ritual, sign my cards with cute messages and send them off in the post.
My list changes every year. Sometimes I add in people who have been part of my year in ways I consider significant. This year one such person was my rota coordinator at work who always does her best to accommodate my leave requests.
Sometimes I leave people out because we’ve drifted apart and although I still wish them all the best, I just don’t feel like giving them anything.
A nice bonus of gift giving is the appreciation I get back. I’ve already started receiving calls and voice notes and videos from some of this years recipients and the warm and fuzzies I get from this is a gift in itself.
Sometimes I struggle to come up with what I consider a suitable gift, especially for my friends and loved ones with high taste but I still try for something thoughtful that doesn’t cost me more than I am comfortable spending.
The good thing about kindness is, it doesn’t always have a financial cost. There’s always a way to show someone kindness that doesn’t involve opening your wallet. It can be as simple as being the type of person who listens when a friend or loved one wants to rant, or leaving an encouraging comment on a random stranger’s post or volunteering for a charity.
Acts of kindness make the world a much nicer place to live in and it is up to all of us to make each other’s lives just that much nicer by being kind to each other.
So my exhortation to you as we celebrate this Christmas Day is that you start looking for all the ways you can spread kindness to the people in your immediate surroundings because we all deserve each other’s kindness.
Recently I read
How to date men when you hate men by Blythe Roberson. My friend Dami sent a picture of the cover to the group chat and the title caught my eye. I went into it with a very open mind and was pleasantly surprised. The author is a comic so it was hilariously written. She writes about her dating experiences as a heterosexual woman, the good and the not-so-good parts, with great wit and nuance and lots of pop culture references. I quite enjoyed it.
Recently I listened to
An episode of Dare to Lead with Brene Brown. This episode was a conversation with James Rhee who I’d never heard of before but sounds like an amazing human. He’s a former high school teacher who also happens to be a Harvard Law graduate, a private equity investor and an impact CEO. He has a popular TED talk which I am yet to check out. He talks a lot about kindness and his work as CEO of Ashley Stewart. It was a very vulnerable conversation. I liked his thoughts on how to lead with kindness. He gave a brilliant example of this when instead of just giving his employees a bonus, he gave them a shorter work week, making them not only cash but also time-rich. A real hero.
It’s Christmas Day and I have spent the whole morning writing this because I was supposed to have written this 2 days ago.
Yesterday I made the cutest reel of the past few weeks and it reminded me that life is the event. Every single day that you open your eyes, that’s the event. Life really does happen in the small everyday moments that we sometimes take for granted, so stop waiting for the big thing or big win and start appreciating and sharing the many blessings that fill your days.
I’m spending Christmas with my friends so I am going to stop being antisocial now and go join them but first I wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to every single person who reads this newsletter. Writing is harder than I imagined but having you all as accountability partners does keep me going.
I love you and Merry Christmas!
P.s: I might take the entire month of January off so do not miss me too much, but if you do, feel free to reach out because I’d love to hear from you.
Chioma.