Treat people well
By Jean Ricot Dormeus
History shows that dehumanizing language leads to widespread wickedness, whereas kind works pave the way to good deeds. In 1994, the world witnessed in shock the atrocious genocide that occurred in Rwanda. A few years earlier, influential Hutus started calling Tutsis, cockroaches, snakes, vermin … The derogatory name calling spiraled the Rwandan society down to a horrific pit. Many countries treat incendiary languages and spiteful attitudes as crimes, while they encourage kindness and civility. Indeed, treating people well guarantees peace and prosperity in any community.
Whenever we flash a smile on someone, or express kind words to them, we feel good, and so does the beneficiary. We make an invaluable contribution to society as we treat our neighbor well. So doing, we prevent our people from descending the slippery slope to violence and chaos.
In April of 2020, the Mental Health Foundation worked with YouGov to conduct an online survey in the UK and found that 63% of the adults surveyed agree that when other people are kind, it has a positive impact on their mental health, and the same proportion agree that being kind to others has a positive impact on their mental health.
This finding confirms Albert Schweiter’s observation, “Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.”
Kindness or the art of treating people well appears to be a vaccine against many social, economic and political dysfunctions. Everyone can commit to spreading it in their family, workplace, church and marketplace. Public policies should strive to make it a common feature in society.
As a result, smiles and words of affirmation and encouragement will replace name calling. And we will lead our communities to the sunny hilltop of well-being, peace and prosperity, as part of fulfilling our mission on Earth.
Jean Ricot Dormeus
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