Definition Essay: Defining Kindness

Leanne Clark

Communication Cluster

Professor Grissom

21 January 2016

Defining Kindness

Kindness is rarely defined because its meaning usually varies from person to person. Everyone has his or her own conception of the word. The online Oxford Dictionary defines the word kindness as the quality of being considerate, generous, and friendly. Society relates it to morality and goodness. To understand the meaning of the word even better, it would be important to assess what it is not. For example, kindness is not inhumanity. It is neither brutality nor cruelty. Kindness is not related to harshness. It has no associations with heartlessness and hatefulness. Kindness cannot be defined by malevolence, callousness, animosity, meanness, and selfishness.

It is impossible to distinguish the two words. A kind person is one who possesses the ability to feel for other people’s misfortunes and unhappiness. Such sympathetic people are usually bighearted enough to try to intervene to their level best in whatever ailing situation is at hand. For example, a person who spends his or her leisure time visiting the sick at the local hospital and paying up the bills of a patient in part or full is considered to be kindhearted. A student who volunteers at the nursing home helping out with the daily chores and caring for the elderly is also considered to be very kind enough to offer his services for free. A philanthropist who frequently donates his resources to the poor or needy population in community is largely thought of to be kind. A kind person, therefore, not only sympathizes with the disadvantaged others in the society but also takes some actions such as offering his time, service or resources with the aim of helping improve the

The quality of kindness is defined by the capacity of a person to be gentle, be caring, and tender towards those around him. The ability to accommodate other people with their differences and incapacities are all definitive elements of kindness. The individual who discriminates others based on factors such as race, gender, age, health, religion can never be associated with the word kindness. On the other hand, the individual who shows compassion and care to everybody regardless of their different situations or traits is considered to be very kind. When I am compassionate to the sick, elderly, the poor as well as the young ones I will be seen to exhibit the quality of kindness. However, when I am constantly at war with those around me, beating up children, refusing service to the elderly, insulting and discriminating against other people such as the sick then I am very