Why Kindness Is Your Most Powerful Tool

I flew across the continental U.S. recently. Bad weather over the Carolinas caused nationwide delays. My flight was delayed nearly 2.5 hours. That resulted in a missed connection.

I wasn’t alone.

When we finally landed late in the evening in Charlotte, the lines at all the airline customer service counters were long and filled with frustrated customers.

I think the word irate describes well the deportment of a man a few places ahead of me in line.

His anger didn’t help the situation. There was legitimately nothing the airline employee could do. There simply were not any flights that would get him to his destination on time.

It’s one of the risks associated with flying. Until we invent Start Trek-level weather control or the ability to fly through storms without endangering people, the airlines will always be at a severe storm’s mercy.

When I got to the counter, it just happened to be with the same agent who had endured the abuse. Having witnessed what she just went through, I decided to redouble my efforts to be nice.

I smiled. I complimented her on how she handled the previous situation. I also asked her if that was the worst part of her job. She smiled and said, “Well, let’s just say it’s my least favorite.”

I admired her for her ability to keep cool in the face of repeated verbal assaults from upset customers.

A 1993 study by JE Oliver for the National Institute of Health found that approximately thirty percent of those raised in abusive environments themselves become abusers. It’s an idea that has been validated and perpetuated for the last twenty years.

In the broader domestic sense, as a country, we’re in a place where the abandonment of civil discourse by many political and popular leaders has created a weird kind of shadow permission to behave in the same way. It’s permission to abuse each other because they can do it and not be censured for it.

Consider a time when you were really angry about something.

Do you recall why you were mad?
Did you feel justified in your anger?
Did your anger resolve the situation?
Or, did your anger make it worse?

There aren’t many situations that can be resolved in a healthy way by matching anger with more anger. However, with the increasingly popular go to behavior being anger, kindness is harder than ever.

This is what makes kindness so powerful. When you tap in and stay connected to your own deep well of personal morality, you can play a powerful part in diffusing tense situations. At the very least, kindness means you don’t have to feel the regret that so frequently comes with lashing out at someone.

In many situations, however, kindness is easier said than done. If you’ve made a habit of responding in anger, it can take a lot of mental work to counter your own habituated tendencies. It takes an awareness of personal triggers and developing mechanisms to respond to triggers before anger comes out.

Here are three practical things you can do to stop yourself from responding in anger:

When you feel yourself getting angry, take a few deep breaths before allowing yourself to respond.
After taking those deep breaths, do your best to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Are they really a jerk (sometimes they are) or are they just having a bad day?
Particularly in conversations with loved-ones, remind yourself and them of your love for them then recuse yourself from the conversation to be resumed when you’ve calmed down a little.

It can be a difficult process to implement, but with practice responding in patience and kindness will replace impatience and anger.

And these days, a little kindness goes a long way.