HIGHER GROUND: Kindness Is a Decision We Can Make Today
By Kyle Ogden
Most of us would like to live in a kinder city. We hope other people will be more patient on the road, more generous with a stranger, more willing to listen when they disagree. But that hope becomes more useful when we turn it toward ourselves.
What will I do today to make kindness visible?
I have been thinking about kindness as a form of agency. We cannot control every circumstance we face or every choice another person makes. We can decide how we will enter a room, respond to an interruption or treat someone who has little power to help us in return. Even on a difficult day, we have some say in the spirit we bring to the people around us.
That may sound obvious. Yet I suspect many of us treat kindness as a personality trait: some people have it and others do not. I see it differently. Everyone can be kind, but being kind requires a choice. The choice becomes more powerful when we make it deliberately.
One way to begin is before the day has had its say. Before we check our phones or review everything we need to accomplish, we might pause and declare a simple intention: Today, I will be kind.
Then we can make that intention specific. I will thank the person whose work I usually take for granted. I will give someone my full attention. I will resist the temptation to answer impatience with more impatience. I will look for one person who could use encouragement and offer it.
Such a practice does not guarantee a perfect day. We will still get tired, frustrated and distracted. But it gives us a way to return to the person we have chosen to be.
Years ago, a psychiatrist who worked with children described to me the importance of helping them name a virtuous identity. When a child begins to see herself as honest, grateful or kind, she has a clearer sense of the person she wants to become. That identity can guide a decision in the moment it matters.
Adults need that reminder, too. There is a difference between wishing we were kinder and saying, “I am a kind person, and today I will act like one.” The first is a hope. The second asks something of us.
I believe we have more agency over the quality of our lives than we sometimes recognize. Not because we can wish away hardship. We cannot. But because the way we practice gratitude, respect and kindness affects our relationships and the daily experience of living together. Each choice helps set the tone in a home, a workplace, a school or a neighborhood.
It also gives us a way to respond when the world feels too large to change. We may not know how to heal every division in our community. We can still welcome someone who feels left out. We may not be able to resolve every disagreement. We can listen with enough care to understand the person across from us. These are modest acts with consequences beyond the moment in which they occur.
That is the invitation behind North Texas Kindness Week, November 7–14. Thanks-Giving Square is calling on people of every belief and background to put kindness into practice across our region. Schools, businesses, faith communities, families and neighbors can each find a way to serve, express gratitude or create a moment of connection. The week begins with the North Texas Kindness Festival on November 7, but its purpose reaches well beyond a single event.
Great cities are ultimately defined not only by what they build, but by how people live together. The people of goodwill in Dallas help define that character every day. Kindness Week gives us an occasion to act together and to notice what our choices can make possible.
So perhaps the most important preparation is also the simplest. Tomorrow morning, before the demands of the day take over, ask yourself: How will I be kind today? Then choose one answer and follow it into the world.
Learn how to take part in North Texas Kindness Week at thanksgiving.org/kindness.
Kyle Ogden is President & CEO of Thanks-Giving Square Foundation