Truth of Kindness

First off, I want to say I’m all for honesty. I think there are too many situations we have created where truth has not been spoken. Ultimate love takes truth. Love is often speaking truth where no one else will. However, I think too many of us in my generation have jumped on the honesty bandwagon and forgotten the beauty of kindness. Being honest is not mutually exclusive to being kind.

In fact, the best honesty is spoken with kindness, love allows no other way.

I don’t often advocate for sugar-coating tough truths, that often makes them even more difficult to handle. And this is not me pushing for a sugar-coated world. It is me saying we need to consider the dignity of others in our speech and action.

Many people are striving to be so ‘real’ with others that they forget that everyone has feelings that must be accounted for. This is not to baby a person, but when giving an opinion that may be harsh there are kind and cruel ways to do. Let us not continue to confuse honesty and cruelty.

We need honesty. There is often so little of it in our conversations and culture. Our need for honesty does not justify us treating others as if their thoughts and needs did not matter.

We are taught kindness in kindergarten, and like many of the other seemingly simple kindergarten lessons it is for a reason. Kindness is important. However, kindness to those we do not like can be an agonizing task. A worthwhile task, but a difficult one. We are often remembered by our choices in terms of kindness. Emma Woodhouse has undergone condemnation for generations because of her one major unkind act.

Even if you do not particularly like or love a person or their actions that does not excuse unkindness. We are all human beings innately deserving of dignity and decency. Believing anything else allows for atrocities of cruelest degree. There is enough wrong with our world that we do not need to add our own pettiness to it. Leave the manipulations and cruelty to middle school girls. And let our words be filled with truth in kindness.

Let us speak truth in all we say. But also allow all we say to reflect our love.