The Importance of Kindness

By: Afton Dyjak and Maria Kelley

When you look at your television or scroll through social media you can see the latest news. With our current news, comes the feelings of stress and/or aggravation. School shootings, police brutality, mass murders, and much more are the prominent causes of our societies hatred. In 2018, politics have made you one of two people: right or left. You are no longer looked at as a person, yet defined as your political stance. With the position you take comes aggression, hate, and anger. How do we as people try to make the world a better place or at least make yourself happy in such a hostile time?

The simple answer is kindness. If you look up the definition of kindness, it says, “kindness is the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate”.

So how can we be kind to one another? This could be as little as holding the door for one another, or maybe even as generous as giving to someone in need.

Kindness isn't just one thing. There are many ways to show kindness, whether it’s through words or actions. Whatever it is, you can positively make a change in someone’s life, and in society.

The statistics for depression in teens is 20%, while anxiety is at 25%. In addition, suicide is the third-leading cause of death for boys and girls ages 15-24. The numbers are frightening, and will surely increase as time goes on. With tragedies happening everyday, it's almost guaranteed that someone will have or encounter someone with a mental illness.

We talked with Wethersfield High School’s social worker Lauren Kremer and asked her several questions about kindness. One starting with “Why do you think kindness is important?”, and she responded with, “I think kindness is important because you just never know what someone is going through in a day. They could look like they’re smiling or have it all together but when they get home it could be a totally different picture.”

Along with her insightful thoughts, she had stated, “And I also think when you are kind it makes you feel better about yourself. I feel like when I sit down with students who are really struggling, I try to empower them, (and) do something that makes them feel good about themselves.”

Not only did she give examples of how to be kind, but she gave real-life experiences. One being how she had a gut feeling to help a family that was stuck on the side of a busy road. She stated, “I think they made my day probably more than I made theirs.”

Ms. Kremer also shockingly brought up Ellen Degeneres. Kremer mentions how Ellen is able to inform you with many things currently happening but still maintain a ¨light and positive¨ mood. This shows how someone is able to take the often stressful and negative world around us and make it more positive.

Kremer had also brought up the news and how she likes watching Ellen Degeneres. Not only does she keep you informed with the world, but also keeps it “light and positive”.

All in all, being kind isn’t a behavior, yet more of a mindset. You have to kind to yourself in order to be kind to others. As said before, the hysteria (more or less) of 2018 has caused a lot of hate and anger, but with a little bit of kindness and Ellen Degeneres- we could make lives a little bit better. There is no perfect answer to why kindness is important because there are just so many reasons to give. But if you could take away one thing from this article it should be that kindness is not needed…. but essential. ​