“At work a few weeks ago, I sat in on a presentation from a local nonprofit that helps underprivileged kids. The man giving the talk was someone I had gone to high school with and, at that time, he was the most cynical guy I had ever met. Afterward, he came over to me with a big smile on his face and said, ‘Bet you never imagined I'd end up here.’
We went out and talked for a couple of hours. I found out that he had been heavy into drugs, jailed countless times, and finally ended up in a maximum- security prison for seven years. He told me that if I thought he was mean in high school, I should have seen him later. ‘I was the original angry man, so mad at anything and everything. I didn't even know who I was anymore.’ Then, in prison, he got drafted into an experimental group therapy project, and the man who ran it changed his life. ‘He didn't do anything special, he just treated me like a human being, and suddenly I started wanting to be a human being.’ At that point, he laughed: ‘There I was, sitting in this prison cell and feeling like I had just crawled out from under a rock into the most beautiful spring morning imaginable.’”
We are all born with the capacity for great kindness—it is deeply woven into the very texture of our souls. But sometimes, before we can access it, it takes effort and the kindness of others to clear away all the debris we have accumulated through living. Is there a person in your life who, with a little kindness from you, can find that capacity in herself? Is it you who needs to believe more in your own innate goodness?
