The Difference Between Been Kind and Been Used
Kindness is the first virtue we are taught and the first we forget how to practice. As children, we are instructed to share, to be nice, to consider others' feelings. These lessons are delivered with the purest intentions: we want our children to be good people, to contribute positively to their communities, to be loved and valued by others. We teach kindness as an unqualified good more kindness is always better, and there is no such thing as too much. This teaching is incomplete. What we fail to teach, what we perhaps do not even understand ourselves, is the distinction between kindness freely offered and kindness extracted. Between generosity that flows from fullness and accommodation that flows from fear. Between the pleasure of giving and the exhaustion of being taken from. Without this distinction, kind people become ideal targets. Not because kindness is weakness it is not but because unexamined kindness lacks boundaries, and boundaries are the only thing that separates genui...