How To Cultivate Love and Kindness
The why and where
Love is why we live.
We laugh, cry, rejoice, and suffer because we care, and we’re always drawn towards what we care about. Love, in its most general sense, provides purpose and direction to every living being.
I have a friend who used to smoke. One day, his child told him that he didn’t like it when he smoked, so he quit right then and there. I think my friend was able to quit because his why stood right before him and revealed to him that his selfish behavior stood in the way of his purpose. His purpose wasn’t to smoke, it was to do his best to support his wife and son.
The more profound our love—our why—the more profound our will to endure discomfort on behalf of what we love. To struggle on behalf of others is what it means to love, and to love is to truly live. So, love and come alive.
Love
Love tells us where to direct our efforts, courage is the effort, and intelligence is what organizes our efforts toward what we love. So, we need to be careful about what gives us direction, that is, what we love. Hubris, a sort of confined love, constrains that which we’re able to consider, producing the ignorant behavior from which all “evil” sprouts, or what Socrates might have called amathia: intelligent stupidity. Like navigating a ship without a compass, the intelligently stupid float on beds of knowledge with reasonably well-built ships yet have no sense of direction.
Love is the most powerful virtue. If you restrict your love to yourself or a select few, you risk harming others. This restriction exists not only in space, but in time as well. By catering to immediate yet impulsive demands of loved ones, we inadvertently withdraw our love from their future.
Strive to expand your scope of consideration. Build, don’t break.
Prompts
Am I providing care, or am I tending to my anxieties and congratulating myself for it?
Am I compassionate, or am I giving in or giving up too easily?
Is stress causing me to inadvertently withdraw my love from loved ones?
If stress is a spark, is your mind like gasoline or water? When the mind is reactive, we become engrossed in setting out fires while neglecting loved ones. When the mind is at peace, we’re able to respond to stressors while tending to loved ones.
When was the last time I intentionally withdrew love from someone I cared for?
Be honest with yourself. Intentional withdrawal indicates deeply entrenched selfish love. If all you love is yourself, you will end up alone.
Practices
Make an effort to provide attention to loved ones; attention is love.
Reach out to family and friends when you think of them.
Be honest with yourself when you feel the urge to protect someone you care for. Will simply removing their suffering now cause them to suffer more later?
Metta (loving-kindness) meditation.
This meditation involves visualizing five people: yourself, a loved one, a mentor, a stranger, and an enemy. One by one, take a moment to picture them seated in front of you and sincerely wish them happiness, peace, and freedom from suffering. How would they react? Would their expressions soften? Would their eyes light up? Would they giggle or dance? How does it feel seeing their reactions? Could you act in a way that (at least) makes it more likely for them to experience those positive emotions?
Dedicate your life to something more important than yourself.
Kindness
Being kind can be challenging. Think of when a driver on the road does something frustrating and you cuss them out, or when someone online makes a comment you find offensive and you scheme for a clever reply. It’s easy to dehumanize others when anonymizing barriers are erected between you and them; but would you act that way to them if they were standing in front of you? Don’t use anonymity to relinquish responsibility and indulge in anger, that’s what cowards do.
Be kind, especially when it’s difficult, especially when you have nothing to gain from it. The bitterness you express in isolation will eventually bleed into non-isolated interactions and, unsurprisingly, leave you further isolated.
Strive to harmonize, not atomize.
Prompts
How often do I give for personal gain? How often do I give selflessly?
Do I withdraw kindness from anyone?
How far does my awareness extend to consider other beings? Does my lack of awareness cause me to harm them?
How often do I engage with my local community? What do I do to support it?
Practices
Smile and acknowledge strangers as they walk by.
Give and ask for nothing in return.
Volunteer, donate, etc.
Build a habit of sincerely wishing the best for others, especially when it’s difficult.
If you have questions you ask yourself or practices you engage with that you find work well, I’d love to hear about them. Feel free to let me know in the comments.