Us and Them

It has been my practice since 2007 to perform and document 1000 acts of kindness each year. The kind acts are the easy part of the challenge and as with most things in life, the greatest value comes from the difficult part — documenting my efforts. I am, I believe, a naturally kind person. What I have learned over the last nine years is that there is a difference between being a kind person and being a mindfully kind person. The distinction between the two is what helps a kind person become a kinder person who is more engaged, more empathic, and significantly more compassionate. It is that same distinction that allows me to understand that a real value of my kindness is how it serves my soul.

Throughout the refugee crisis, people have polarized around their values and, more so, their fears. We are becoming a society of us and them. Ironically most of the fears dividing us are about protecting ‘our’ way of life. Yet the most common response to that fear tends to be a willingness to give up the very values we say we hold dear, all in the name of security. I believe my value to society and the planet is found in my actions, not my birthright. Many people are being denied the peace and freedom that I take for granted only because they were born on the other side of an imaginary line. In our world the difference between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ is quite literally, a matter of being born a centimetre to the left or to the right.

Kindness changes everything. Kindness ignores species, race, nationality, religion, and gender. Kindness only sees a life in need.

“The world is getting too small for both an Us and a Them. Us and Them have become codependent, intertwined, fixed to one another. We have no separate fates, but are bound together in one. And our fear of one another is the only thing capable of our undoing.” - Sam Killermann