I was reading through comments on my post about compassion vs pity yesterday and mentioned that they had posed this question a few days ago. I think it's a very good question and I encourage you to check it out HERE. Today I'll discuss my perspective on this topic and why I think kindness can be both selfish and unselfish depending on other circumstances. I hope everyone will check out
's post and show some love too!
I feel that there is what I consider true kindness and conditional kindness. I view conditional kindness much in the way that I do with conditional love in that it really isn't a complete manifestation. This particular manifestation is usually rampant with entitlement and feeling that we are somehow owed something from others or the universe for our actions. I can't say that I've never taken this approach, but what I've found is that when our intentions get brought into question then everything we've done seems to fall apart. It's one of the reasons why I try to only do things that I generally enjoy doing and help those I meet along the way because I want to do so. I feel that if we go around just looking for problems we are inherently judging others excessively and it's a good way to learn exactly why entitlement and expectations can grow toxic.
True kindness, from my perspective, comes from a place of unconditional love. If we give our kindness freely without expectations, then we never develop that sense of entitlement. We don't feel that others owe us anything and the entire process of attachment is much more healthy. People can come and go in our lives and we don't feel any need to treat them differently or selfishly cling to them or try to change them. There is no anger at them or the universe for not bending to our will. From my perspective, the only way to truly be kind to others is to love them unconditionally and without expectations. Sometimes that doesn't feel like a good thing when things don't go the way we hoped they would, but as long as we don't form our attachments with unrealistic expectations or selfish intentions, I feel like it's much easier to still love others even if we go our separate ways. Namaste.