by Maria C Collins

Created on: March 08, 2009   Last Updated: March 22, 2010

Plato wrote, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle" People are worried distressed, and unnecessarily angry, especially in the present financial crisis. Motorists get angry when other drivers do something daft. An English court recently sentenced two people for killing a man in a dispute over queue jumping in a supermarket. We are stressing ourselves into an early grave. What has happened to the random acts of kindness, that were simple good manners and neighborliness, and loving our neighbor as ourselves? We have become selfish and intolerant despite the claptrap of political correctness. This self-absorption is harming our health, our communities and our countries.

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see" (Mark Twain). People have always felt that an act of kindness whether they are the performer, recipient or just witness the deed makes them feel better about life. A recent study has proved that feeling. A kindness increases serotonin levels and strengthens the immune system in the performer, recipient and witnesses of the kind act. Serotonins are endorphins released by the brain. Endorphins are the body's natural painkillers, the high that athletes experience and they cause the good feelings that one has after a good brisk walk or swim. Doctors treating depression use drugs that increase serotonin levels because endorphins make people happy.

Kindness costs nothing. A cheery word to someone, listening to another's troubles, offering to do a neighbor's shopping, or to take them shopping, can mean so much.

Once, anyone with elderly neighbors naturally kept a friendly, unobtrusive, eye on them to make sure that they were well and coping. People volunteered to help in the local community, church or with local activities. In rural France, that still happens. In many village festivals, whether happy occasions such as the music festival or something more somber like the village remembrance service, the community serves nibbles, and drinks. You will see a tiny girl standing on a box beside her mother, struggling to pour orange juice into paper cups for villagers. Boys rush around beside their fathers to fetch, carry, and set up chairs. The example set speaks for itself and the cohesion of society is apparent on the long lazy evenings of the summer festivals. Something happens which seems quite strange to foreigners. Families from tiny tots to elderly grandparents, including teenagers go to the festival together, stay together all evening, and genuinely enjoy one another's company. It happens too in everyday life, in any problem or difficulty a neighbor will help you.

Helping someone makes us happier and calmer. The kind deed also benefits the recipient, and any witnesses of that kindness. That cannot be a bad thing in this angry world. Selfishness, hostility, anger and intolerance harm us, our health and the cohesion and health of our communities and countries. In these troubling times we need to pull together, being kind to one another might be a good place to begin to mend our world.

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