We misunderstand kindness by taking it to be soft, or a push-over. Genuine kindness arises from a heated engagement with the world and with life. It's borne of our efforts and our sadness, our gratitude, frustration and loss, our hard-won experience and our encounters with life's finitude.Kindness calls on us to:
face our difficultiesspeak truth rather than cover it over with self-justification or evasionpoint out what needs changingdraw attention to situations lacking integrity or good judgementwitness others' distress and disorientation and share our ownsay yes and no clearly, without excusestake a stand for what mattersspeak outmagnify dignity and possibility for everyonebring forward both our tenderness and our fierce courageWhen we think that kindness is a push-over we're mostly thinking of kindness without discernment or wisdom: kindness that stands back from difficulty, kindness that robs others of dignity by denying their distress, kindness that strips people of their capacity to act for themselves, kindness that serves to make us feel better but does nothing to make the world better, kindness that's simply cotton wool to life's hard edges.In the end, that's no kindness at all.
Two different interpretations of your emotions:1. Emotions are just something that happens. They sweep in, and sweep out again. There to be felt, but not to be obsessed over, worried over, analysed. Emotions simply are.2. Emotions are of the deepest significance. They show you what you care about. They're the surest route to understanding what matters to you. Far from being an interruption to reason they are a form of intelligent, meaning-laden reasoning, and the heart of what it is to be human.So often we're blinded by the particular interpretation of emotions that we cling to.So perhaps if you find yourself obsessed with what you're feeling, you might try out living in interpretation 1 for a while.And if you treat your emotions as a nuisance, a distraction, and better left alone, how about a while treating interpretation 2 as if it's true?
Yesterday. 'Be more, Do more'. The tag-line for a personal training company written on the back of a van in front of me on the drive into town. The narrative theme of our times, the poetry of our shared culture, as revealed by the advertising and marketing that surrounds us.When we live in the narrative of 'more', every action, every conversation, every relationship becomes dedicated to an unending project for which we feel continuously responsible. More money, more stuff, more experiences, more trips, more friends, more relationships - yes. But also more capable, more powerful, more self-determining, more authentic, more persuasive, more reasonable, more peaceful, more compassionate, more successful, more loved, more happy, more fulfilled. When we orient towards ourselves this way we become the project, the objects of an unending self-improvement effort that requires our constant vigilance.And anything can be appropriated in service of the project of self-improvement. Excellence, which once meant living a life as an expression of virtue, comes to mean standing out from the mass. Learning - a means of getting the best test results. Art - a way to look (and think of ourselves as) cultured. Meditation and other spiritual practice - a way to have an untroubled life of peace and tranquility. Exercise - a way to get a body that others will be attracted to. Our own development - a way to gain unlimited power to do what we want, when we want it, and to have others support us and love us for it.When we live in this way, convinced that we're always due an upgrade, there is nowhere to rest. But, more importantly, we distort ourselves with a gross misunderstanding of what it is to be human, a misunderstanding in which we secretly imagine that it's possible to be a god. After all, who else but the mythical gods stand out, in all circumstances, from others? Who else has endless power, beauty, fulfilment? The capacity to summon abundance and tranquility upon a command, the ability to avoid suffering, accident and happenstance? Who but the gods have an existence in which there is no death, loss, disappointment, or illness? And who but the gods get just what they want, when they want it?When we live as if we're supposed to be gods, or entitled to be gods, we shouldn't be surprised at the harshness of our disappointment and self-criticism, our endless comparison with the lives of others, and the way we're hurled from grandiosity (I've made it, the all-powerful me) to deflation (I'm so small, and the world is so big, and there's no hope) and back again. And we shouldn't be surprised at what a fight we get into with our lives - lives that often surprise us, let us down, show us how little we know, throw us about, all without much regard for whether we're getting what we want.When we stop trying to improve ourselves (and often the people around us) all the time, we can start to appreciate in a new way the very natural and quite beautiful capacity of human beings to develop; to unfold like the buds of a rose. And we come to see, I am coming to think, that the path of our development is not trying to be gods, but finding out that we are ordinary.To be ordinary is to discover that we share the same heritage and future as all human beings, and all living things - a heritage and future that we cannot escape. To know ourselves as ordinary is to find out that we have bottomless capacity for compassion, kindness, wisdom, beauty and contribution as well as for selfishness, cruelty, denial and stupidity. To know ourselves as ordinary is to understand that we'll die, that there are consequences to our actions, that the earth's resources are limited, that we can't just have what we want because we say so. And to know ourselves as ordinary is to see that the vast world was here long before us and will be here long after us, and to find out that our contribution - if we're willing to make it - ripples out through the other ordinary lives that our life touches, both those who are around us now and those who are to come.To know ourselves as ordinary is to discover humility, finding out that we're not bigger than life but neither are we smaller than it; to take up our place in the weave of living things in which we find ourselves.When we know ourselves as ordinary we discover that we're all in this together and, because of this, we have some justification for hope: the understanding that our skills, capacities and deepest commitments can be an immense source of help even when we cannot control the outcome. We have a reason to love and care for others who are as messy, conflicted, confused and life-filled as ourselves. And we find ourselves able to step in on behalf of life, rather than lose ourselves in fairy stories of optimism (it will magically all get better whether or not I take part) or pessimism (in which we're all lost, whatever we do).
In recent months I have taken up reading printed newspapers instead of reading online. It's a decidedly low-tech, tactile experience. And what I have most come to appreciate is the boundedness of the activity, the constraints imposed by a form which is, simply, just what it is. There are no hyperlinks, no pop-ups, no advertising or stories chosen on the basis of my previous browsing habits. A single edition contains just what it contains, and no more.The effect on me of this particular, immutable, physical arrangement of words and ideas is often quite profound. I read with much greater attention, free of the urge to jump out and away any time a link catches my eye. I read about topics I don't read about online, because the paper does not hide from me perspectives and ideas that are different from my own. I am called to step into other worlds - worlds distinct from those shared with me by my Facebook friends and by the advertisers who are determined to sell to me what they already know that I like.Mostly, though, I am freed by the containment of the form to be up to just one thing, and I experience this as enormously satisfying.We have been sold powerfully on the freedom to choose whatever we want, whenever we want, and promised that realising this freedom is the pinnacle of human achievement and fulfilment. It's a promise that often feeds our restlessness and rootlessness. Reading the newspaper reminds me of a parallel possibility, that of choosing to purposefully limit our own choices, of the beauty and dignity of commitment.It is but a small example of a powerful principle by which we can live. Our willingness to bind ourselves by a promise, to give up a superficial freedom, uncovers a deeper, more significant freedom. It's when we're prepared to be up to one thing that we stop skimming across the surface of experience and find ourselves invited into a deepening engagement with the world.And if it's true of reading the newspaper, how much more true it becomes when we are willing to make life-defining commitments, those that bind us into a particular kind of care and attentiveness to the world, and have us set aside trying to do it all.
In this time when we're seeing again how readily language can be used to undermine truth, disorient us, and turn us away from one another, let's dedicate ourselves to recovering the sanctity and dignity of words.Let's remind ourselves that language matters, because it's from language that we build all of our shared human life.Let's remember that this is about each of us. Because the everyday practices in our families and organisations include ways of using language to distort, cover-up, depersonalise, avoid and confuse. And that this, step-by-step, unravels its life-giving power.Let's commit ourselves to using words in ways that preserve, and clarify, and deepen meaning and understanding. Let's remember that we'll often fall short, and will have to rededicate ourselves to the task, again and again.And let's keep reminding ourselves that the power of words to reveal, to illuminate, to uncover, and to share the precious fruits of knowledge between us is vital, rare, and easily undone.
The values you’ve declared for your organisation are not things that you can put on your wall, or lock away in a safe. You don’t have them. You can’t own them. And you most certainly can't 'embed' them in others, unless like rivets embedded in a wall you're planning on using force.You can’t even, in all truthfulness, say ‘these are our values’. Because values are, more accurately, works-in-progress, ongoing commitments to something that can never be completed.You don’t have fairness, dignity, compassion, justice, creativity, honesty or service. You bring them about, most importantly when they’re least in evidence, when they’re most challenged, when they’re most called most into question by the complexities and compromises of life. And in each moment of action they are already in the midst of disappearing again.When you relate to values as things they become things. The objects of lip-service. Inert, lifeless, hardly practiced.Remember instead that values are a state of affairs that you’re actively working to bring about. You can't embed them, but you can cultivate them. And that way they’ll have a chance of remaining alive in your hands.
My fantasy self is perfect. He doesn't cause any trouble. He can get things done in just the time they take, and no less. He never makes a mistake, and he's always does exactly what other people really need him to do. He's humble, self-effacing, kind. He can resolve the most intractable of disagreements simply and elegantly, with reasoned, calm speech and attentive listening. Never selfish, always wise, forever reasonable, he's always perfectly attuned to the needs of others. People want to be with him, to praise him (quietly) for his sacrifices. They want him to rescue them from their difficulties. And he's above all disdain and criticism. If people criticise him, they must, simply, be wrong. My fantasy self is easily hurt, but would never show it.My fantasy self isn't me. I'm far messier than that. Often disorganised, late, frequently confused. I leave my umbrella on the bus. I love, fiercely and deeply and in complicated ways. I fall deeply into my passions - books, people, music, poetry, ideas. I'm often filled with self-criticism and self-doubt. I can bring deep, profound wisdom when I'm still enough and present enough. I can be as stubborn as hell. Funny. Over-serious. I make terrible mistakes, and beautiful ones. I know how to teach. I can be exquisitely tender and gentle. I rage.And what suffering, what sorrow, for me and for others around me, when I confuse the two. When I pretend to be my fantasy self. When I live in ongoing comparison with his impossible standards. And when I defend him, fiercely, closing out the ones who love me because they have had the honesty and care to see me not as my fantasy, but as I am.
Two common errors that rob us of our freedom and our integrity.The first is imprisoning ourselves with the facts of our lives.
Intelligence. Creativity. Love. Strength. Openness. Connection. Inspiration. Tenderness. Discipline. Rage. Courage. Artfulness. Curiosity. Compassion. Wisdom.All of these are human resources.What we've done by calling people 'human resources' obscures this. It forces us into a category that includes money, electricity, technology and fuel. This way we become objects rather than subjects, commodities rather than people, tools for production rather than living beings, 
We over-imagine and we under-imagine and, curiously, much of the trouble we get into seems to come from having them back-to-front.We over-imagine what surrounds us in time and space, worrying about future events that may not happen, inventing troubles and concerns that are far beyond our control and influence, and letting all this crowd out our sensing of where we are.And we under-imagine our own capacity, becoming convinced of the judgements of our own inner-critics, taking our shame to be the only part of ourselves worth listening to, becoming transfixed by our fear. It's what Adam Phillips, in his marvellous book