Be a good person

Yet in a changing society, kindness is sometimes questioned. When you do good deeds, people ask: “Did you film it and post it on Facebook?”. When you help others, some people whisper: “There must be a purpose.” Even picking up lost things and returning them is considered “naive.” I don’t know since when people started to fear being called kind. What is right is considered foolish. What is honest is considered bad. When you do something decent, people ask: “Don’t you know how to do it?” When you refuse to accept gifts, people say you are “snobbish.” What is wrong becomes clever, what is right becomes strange. It is really strange.

Kindness is not something lofty. It is living with integrity. It is not saying two words. It is doing good deeds without anyone witnessing it. In the West, people are used to living like that. During flood season, the women selling at the market collect rice and noodles to give to the people. No need for thank you letters, no one is in the newspaper. Some people lost money, some students found it and returned it, without asking for a reward, without taking pictures. They just said one sentence: "It's not yours, why keep it?" That is quiet kindness. And the quieter something is, the more precious it is.

Someone asked me: “Is there any loss in living a kind life?”. I did not answer right away, because sometimes I felt my heart sink. Because I had seen honest people isolated, wrongs praised, and good things ridiculed. But thinking back, I cannot let go because of those things. If I cannot keep kindness in my heart, what is left?

President Ho Chi Minh once said: “If you have virtue but no talent, it will be difficult to do anything, but if you have talent but no virtue, it will be useless.” The longer you live, the more you realize that this saying is true. Talent can be learned, but virtue must be cultivated over a lifetime. A virtuous person does not take advantage of the people. Does not covet things that are not theirs. Does not use the name of service to enrich themselves. To be able to do so is already being kind.

Every society has good and bad, good and evil, black and white. But if good people keep quiet, the bad will prevail. Living a decent life is not to set an example, nor to show off. Living a decent life is to not be ashamed of yourself. It is so that later, when your children ask: “How did your father/grandfather live back then?”, you can answer without embarrassment.

I once saw a mother wrap a piece of paper in her child’s bag that said: “If you see someone fall, help them. If you see someone suffering, help them. If you see someone doing something wrong, don’t follow them.” That piece of paper doesn’t have any profound reasoning, but it’s enough to teach a person to “become a human being.” Kindness is like that. It starts at home. From the way we speak. From the way we go to the market, walk on the street, and interact with others. Don’t swear, don’t push, don’t try to get ahead. Just that much and society will be much easier to live in.

Kind people do not need to be rich, nor do they need to have power. They only need to have a heart, and kindness, although not noisy, has the power to spread, like a flame passing from one hand to another. A kind person will make two other people believe in what is right more, then three, then five, then ten people. Like that, kindness will no longer be a personal matter but a way of life. No one laughs at you for being kind. If someone laughs, it is because they do not understand. But those who do not understand will one day understand. As for me, being able to maintain an upright heart during a time when everything is easily turned upside down is already a success.

Writing up to here, I remember what an old man once said: “The hardest thing to do as a human is to keep your heart clean. But once you keep it clean, you will have a place wherever you go.” Sounds simple, yet profound, and so true.

Source: https://baoangiang.com.vn/lam-nguoi-tu-te-a425981.html