Steemkids community word definition contest series wk 02|what does kindness mean to you? By @pato84. 10% Payout to @steemkidss

10% Payout to @steemkidss ### Introduction Hi to all Steemians in steemkids scattered by over the globe l warmly greet you all. With great interest and passion l wish to participate in this contest and invite you to my blog on what KINDNESS really means to me.

What Do You Understand By kindness

Kindness is a gentle, courteous, merciful, thoughtful and conscious treatment of others, not minding whether they deserve it or not. It is a trait modeled after God's treatment of us.
Kindness is the quality of being generous, considerate, courteous and friendly in our treatment of others. There are many ways to practice kindness.

Early in the Covid-19 pandemic in the year 2020, I listened to some leading experts in medicine, economics, politics, and education. Each of them predicted and projected what life might be like by June 2021. The picture was vague and washed with shades of gloom, but tiny glimmers of hope still sparkled here and there.Their conclusion really and interestingly caught my attention as it relates to the subject of KINDNESS and Compassion. They pointed out that When life settles back into some kind of new normality, the test of our society will be how KIND, compassionate and supportive we have become toward those who are now poor, weak, bereaved, destitute, handicapped, homeless, jobless, and more vulnerable than ever before.
So from this submission I wish to deduce my definition of what KINDNESS means. Kindness or the act of being kind means different things to different people at a particular given time.
When someone is hungry feeding him is an act of KINDNESS to such a hungry fellow. When someone is staggering with a heavy load on his head, helping such a person to carry the load is an act of KINDNESS. When someone is sick, treating such a person is considered an act of KINDNESS. When someone is in the prison, just a mere visiting is tagged an act of kindness.
What about clothing the naked, consoling the mourning, visiting orphanages, helping the blind to cross high ways, and so on and so forth . Time and space will fail me to continue listing them. At this juncture, in a nutshell I will say that KINDNESS and Compassion are inseparably interwoven. They are twin sisters. You can only show or extend act of KINDNESS to someone you have Compassion on. Invariably you can not be compassionate without expressing some acts of kindness. KINDNESS, therefore is not a virtue to be hidden or hoarded when possessed rather it is a virtue to be manifested and to/with others. How you live and what you do speaks volumes on whether you are kind or not.

Who Can Show KINDNESS And why?

Kindness is a virtue every one ought to possess. And like its closest cousin "love", kindness contains incredible power; it is a witness in and of itself of what our Heavenly Father is like. Any body can show and be shown KINDNESS. No one is exempt from the acts of KINDNESS.
Kindness is not beyond the reach of any, although it may take a d involve the sacrifice of time and energy and even resources and some sort of self-denial.
Have you Shown Someone Kindness and how did you do that and how did the recipient feel?
As a health worker and medical practitioner, I think I am in a better position to show acts of kindness than those in other profession,(my personal assertion though). Why I say so is because the people that need kindness the most are the sick and those with health challenges which no amount of money can afford to buy, except with divine intervention. So each time I come across the sick person I try my possible best to render acts of kindness. Especially those that are sick but financially handicapped. And again the aged, those that have gone down in age. There is this old mama, that is well stricken in age and have no children to assist her each time she comes to my drug dispensary shop I always give her free medicare to show her KINDNESS. And this mama never always cease to pronounce blessings upon me and my shop. She sings my name in her daily songs and always broadcast my kind gestures to her all around. Recently she went and harvested her groundnut and maize and brought some reasonable quantities to me in appreciation.

Has any one shown you kindness before and you feel when you were shown KINDNESS?

I have come to realize that KINDNESS is reciprocal. As it is said whatever goes around comes around.The way you give it out the same way it comes back to you so I decided to call it a bumerang. I have severally been both a benefactor and a beneficiary of kindness respectively. The time my house and all my properties was engulfed by fire and I couldnt remove a single pin from the house , people showered me with unspeakable and unquantifiable acts of kindness and I was greatly astonished at the amount of love,kindness and compassion I received from all and sundry.

Pictures of Some of the people I have shown kindness

Sharing my meal with others as an act of kindness

Offering a free medicare, taking a widow's blood pressure as an act of kindness

Dripping a sick Little orphan girl on a free medicare

Impacting some school children with some acts of kindness

Do you think kindness is a virtue that should be cultivated by all and be demonstrated in a practical way?

To begin with, kindness is one of the attributes of God and all worshippers of God ought to cultivate, possesse and demonstrate it as a treasurable virtue. It is to be manifested in our words and actions. Instead of being nasty, hostile, rude and hurtful in our words we speak life giving words. Kindness is a virtue that ought to be cultivated, possessed and demonstrated or exhibited by all humankind irrespective of one's social status, race, tribe , religion. True KINDNESS is not selective, preferential, sentimental,biased or tribalistic. It knows no boundary and is boundless,no tribe, colour,race or religion. Rather it cut a across every tongue and people and nation. True KINDNESS believes that it does not matter who you are or why you are suffering what you are suffering it helps without being judgmental, sentimental,fanatical or fault-finding. "Acts of kindness should grease the wheel of all our interactions with others,but especially at home"
A peace activist by name Anne Herbert once said men ought to "practise random kindness and senseless acts of beauty"

How did you learn of kindness and where.?

I learnt kindness from three places namely;
I My Family
The family being the first agent of socialization is the first place I learnt of kindness. I was taught from childhood that we ought to care for our families first because our closest relationships are always our greatest responsibility as little things are like the litmus paper(test) of our ability to handle and manage bigger and greater responsibilities. Husbands and wives are called to cherish and be kind to each other and parents are as well enjoined to kind to their children and wards. When everyone in the family has been cherished, cared for and treated kindly, then we are ready to extend and replicate KINDNESS to those outside our home. So I will say at this juncture that kindness is HOMEGROWN. The world at large needs kindness and kind people, and it begins right from our home because the family is the Nucleus of the society.My parents started at a very tender and infant age to teach, and inculcate in us little by little certain traits and practices which we understood what they meant as of them but they have eventually metamorphosed into indelible and immutable character traits of KINDNESS. In fact they have become part and parcel of us. Acts like washing our siblings clothes which is rotational every weekend so that each of us would have to participate and partake in it, washing one another's plate after meals, opening door for our siblings when they come back, remaining food for our younger ones when we are eating together. Cutting one another's toe nails. How my mother used to be sleepless and restless whenever any of is sick or injured. The list goes on....... Now as a full grown adult ,each time I reminisce those acts of kindness learnt from my parent from childhood ,,as little and insignificant as they seemed to us then, it always compel and propel me to replicate same and pass it down to me immediate family members--wife and kids,to my clients and patients and to any other person I come across. If our family are porous when it comes to acts of KINDNESS our society will be porous too. Nurturing and cultivating kindness start s in the home.

2 From The Bible
There abound instances of kindness in the Bible such as: David showed Mephibosheth , jonathans son generous,courteous and continued kindness.
The kindness of the Good Samaritan to the man victimized on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho.
The writings of apostle Paul on love and it's attributes and also the fruit of the holy spirit.Apostle Paul mentioned Kindness which also means Gentleness in some Bible translation, while talking about the fruit of the spirit. In the chain-fruit of the spirit which are nine(9) in number, kindness is mention as number five placing it at the middle and center point. KINDNESS when juxtaposed with the rest of the fruit of the spirit you discover that it is key and Central to the others. It serves as a connecting rod to the rest. Because a critical look and study of the fruit will tell you that;
KINDNESS versus other fruit of the spirit:
You can't LOVE unless you are kind .
You can't have JOY in you except you are kind and generous and acts of kindness instills oceanic joy in the heart.
You can't have PEACE except you are kind.
Of course it takes a Kind person to be Patient. Also Kind people are said to be Good. So GOODNESS and KINDNESS are twin sisters.
Likewise you can't claim to be FAITHFUL to God if you are kind to others.
You must be HUMLE,MEEK and lowly of heart before you can practice kindness because you must condescend to people's level before you can reach out to them and show them Kindness. Lastly kind people are TEMPERATE AND SELF-CONTROLLED. They don't flare up or lose their temper very easily at the slightest offense. Just as love is seen in Action and just as Faith Without works is dead . So also is KINDNESS empty, mere pretense and useless unless it responds in wise,caring and practical ways that positively impacts the other person's in need. Jesus Chris our great example of kindness was sensitive enough to notice when people were hungry and he fed them. He wrote with the mourning. He sympathized and empathized with the sick .

3 Medical profession
On daily basis we meet different calibres of people. Some who are sick and cants afford a square meal a day and they need to eat and take their medications. So what I do is buy them foood and also give the free medications.

How will the world look like if everyone cultivates this quality and ?
Let me start here by quoting Alexander Maclaren, a notable London clerglyman of the late nineteenth century, he said: "Gentleness (KINDNESS) is the strongest force in the world. You take all the steam hammers that were ever forged and battle at an iceberg, and except for the comparatively little heat that is developed by the blows and melts some small portion, it will still be ice, though pulverized instead of whole. But let it move GENTLY down to the southward, there the sunbeams smite the coldness of death, and it is dissipated in the warm ocean. Kindness is conquering."
KINDNESS and love make the world go round. Without love and kindness our world will be a whole sort of a mesmerized place to live. The only different between our planet Earth and other planets is that Love and KINDNESS are shown,felt and shared in our Earth habitat. Kind acts and kind words seasoned with love are like a medicine to our dying world. If we all will cultivate and practice kindness vour world will be a better place to live and become a paradise on Earth.

Conclusion

Let us to show kindness on daily basis in the best possible little way we can.And As followers of Christ worshippers of God, nothing discredits our claims like acts of unkindness. Being kind to those who are unkind to us is a Hallmark of being a true follower of Jesus. So often, how we treat others comes back on ourselves. That is ,when we are kind , it is much likelier that others will be kind to us. It works the other way, too; be mean to others, and others will be mean to you, as well. On several occasions I have faced situations in which calm, kinds words intervened in a very volatile situation and prevented the trouble and salvaged the situation. I thanks steemkids for allowing me this privilege to express my indepth feelings on what KINDNESS entails hoping that you will take you time to read through.

I hereby invite
@kacham02
@charis20
@patience90

Best Regards
@pato84