In his sensitive book Together, Vivek Murthy, who has been nominated to be the Surgeon General in the United States by President Biden, underscores the importance of kindness in fostering human connection. He describes a programme that was conducted across schools in Anaheim, California. Christened A Million Acts of Kindness, this programme, championed by the Mayor Tom Tait, involved schools actively promoting acts of kindness amongst students. As a result of children extending kindness to one another, both bullying and school suspensions plummeted.

Want to make a meaningful difference? Try kindness

Murthy outlines another programme that was spearheaded by a high school teacher following a horrific school shooting in Charlotte, North Carolina. Knowing that it was just impossible to go on with business as usual after the devastating event, Justin Parameter instituted the Undercover Agents of Kindness programme at his school. Parameter first put the names of all his students in a bowl and had pupils randomly draw a chit. The assignment that he gave students was to carry out a kind act towards the person whose name they had drawn and then write a report describing the experience.

So, students who hadn’t necessarily known one another well, went about making their lives easier. One student bought ice cream and stayed in the classroom with an injured student instead of going out to play. Another student gave his peer a stress ball because he noticed that his friend used to vent his frustrations in inappropriate ways. As a result of this programme, which gradually grew very popular, students started noticing and taking interest in each other’s lives and strove to make a meaningful difference. Murthy reports that this programme has mushroomed in other cities across the United States and the world.

Being kind is hazardous to loneliness

In a school in South Florida, another compassionate programme was initiated by a student, Denis Estimon and his peers. When he joined a new school, he noticed that not only he, but a subset of other children as well, seemed lonely and ate lunch by themselves. Teaming up with three classmates, Denis and his band would go around the school during lunch time and invite children who were sitting alone to join the We Dine Together group.

As kindness is infectious, this programme too spread its wings to fifteen other schools within a year and has taken root in other countries as well. Denis, who has subsequently graduated from high school, was so enthused by the success of his programme that he now runs a movement to champion inclusion in schools all over the world. He shared a poignant anecdote with Murthy that advertises the power of kindness. A mother of a boy with Asperger’s syndrome thanked Denis, her eyes brimming with tears, because her son had friends for the first time in his life, thanks to Denis’ brainchild.

To be happier, try a little more kindness

In her insightful book The How of Happiness psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky describes how acts of kindness can enhance the happiness and wellbeing, not only of the receiver, but of the giver as well. In one experiment, participants were asked to consciously perform everyday acts of kindness like holding the door open for somebody, sending flowers to a friend, visiting a sick relative etc. for a period of six weeks. The first group was asked to do five acts of kindness spread randomly across the week. The second group was asked to perform five acts in a single day per week. At the end of every week, the researchers obtained data from the participants that described their well-intentioned acts.

To the researchers’ surprise, only the second group that performed five kind acts on a single day per week exhibited a considerable increase in their happiness levels. Lyubomirsky speculates that this might be due to the fact that most of us routinely perform small acts of kindness every now and then. However, to experience a significant fillip to our happiness, the acts need to stand out. In other words, we need to do more than what we typically do.

Make acts of kindness salient and poignant, not tedious or routine

In another study, Lyubomirsky and her colleagues measure the happiness levels of participants one month after the intervention was conducted. Participants who performed a variety of kind acts showed greater gains in happiness than those who performed the same good deeds repeatedly. For kindness, as a practice, to make a dent in your wellbeing, the acts need to salient, meaningful and poignant rather than routine or tedious. Further, Lyubomirsky reminds us that the kind acts need to be done voluntarily for you to feel better about yourself.

As being kind positively impacts both the giver and receiver, we may consciously strive to include more kindness into our days. While vaccines may help us fight the pandemic, injecting kindness into our lives may help us heal more holistically.

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Nature of friendships changes as you grow older

As we grow older, life events may affect the size of our friendship circles and support networks. Friendship circles undergo the greatest amount of transition during the final third of our lives. Luckily, support network size doesn’t matter. Whether you have just one good friend or one hundred friends, nourishing relationships will positively influence your wellbeing. Smaller friendship circles also yield fewer opportunities for interpersonal conflict.

As we age, we also value more strongly those friends who are similar to us in terms of beliefs, morals and spiritual practices. We prefer to be in the company of those who share our experiences and perspectives. Just knowing that you are a part of a social support network enhances your self-esteem—after all, a sense of belonging, at any age, helps you feel that your life matters and has value.

Whether you have just one good friend or one hundred friends, nourishing relationships will positively influence your wellbeing

Design your own friendscape

The term “friendscape” describes the nature of a person’s friendship connections. In the landscape of our relationships, we consider some relationships to be lifelong or perennial, whereas other relationships seem more seasonal. Older adults typically fall into one of the three categories of friendscapers:

• the independent friend, who doesn’t feel the need for deep relationships and tends toward activity-centred friendships;
• the discerning friend, who invests energy into a small number of high quality relationships; and
• the acquisitive friend, who enjoys and nourishes friendships from years past, but continues to add to her social circle.

Regardless of which type of friendscape you design, the most important aspect is your satisfaction in your social networks. Nurturing social relationships ensures a healthier and more satisfying life, regardless of age. Making room for relationships in our lives is one of the easiest ways to preserve our emotional, cognitive, spiritual and physical wellbeing.

Just knowing that you are a part of a social support network enhances your self-esteem

Tips for finding new friends

• Investigate the resources in your community. Your city or town may have a centre that hosts activities for senior citizens.
• Volunteer for causes that are important to you, whether it’s helping out at a children’s centre, delivering meals to the infirm, or shelving books at the library. You will benefit from interacting with others who have similar interests.
• Attend senior programmes for exercise and fitness at community centres. If you are not yet in shape, these programmes will help you become more active.
• If you are a caregiver for a relative, seek out caregiver support groups. Connecting with others dealing with similar struggles can be an emotional and social lifesaver even if your obligations limit your interactions primarily to telephone or email.
• Get to know your neighbours. Take some time out of your day to interact with them. If they work, ask them what would be a suitable time to visit them at home or for them to come over to your house.
• If you attend religious services, get involved in group meetings or classes.
• Seek out volunteer groups that visit people who are homebound. Either join the group as a volunteer or ask to be put on their visitation list.

Tips for maintaining friendships

• Share confidences with new friends. As you get older and friends move away or pass away, it’s important to develop new relationships in which you can be intimate and honest about yourself and your life.
• If you live alone and you have other friends in the same situation, organise regular group gatherings.
• Find mutually enjoyable activities to do together. Create a book club, visit museums, or take adult education classes together. Stay connected through shared experiences.
• When first connecting with new friends, pay attention to their likes, dislikes and what’s important to them.
• Introduce new friends to current friends so that the community of older adults can be more closely connected.
• Telephone friends instead of waiting for them to call you.
• Learn to use a computer or smartphone to better stay in touch with others.
• Carry a camera with you wherever you go and take pictures of events and friends. It’s a great way to create and cherish memories.

The post The Value of Good Friends Grows As You Grow Old appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Without the other, we don’t know who we are; we lose our identity. The other becomes a mirror and we can see our faces in it.

Without the other, we are suddenly thrown to ourselves. Great discomfort and inconvenience arise, because we don’t know who we are. When we are alone we are in very strange company, very embarrassing company. We don’t know with who we are.

With the other, things are clear, defined. We know the name, we know the form, we know the man, or the woman—Hindu, Christian, Indian, American—there are some ways to define the other. How to define yourself?

Deep down there is an abyss; undefinable. There is an abyss, an emptiness. You start merging into that. It creates fear. You become frightened. You want to rush towards the other. The other helps you to hang out; the other helps you to remain out. When there is nobody, you are simply left with your emptiness.

Aloneness is Your Nature

The first thing to realise is that whether you want or not, you are alone. Aloneness is your very nature. You can try to forget it; you can try not to be alone by making friends, having lovers, mixing in the crowd. But whatever you do remains just on the surface. Deep inside, your aloneness is unreachable, untouchable.

A strange accident happens to every human being: as he is born the very situation of his birth begins in a family. And there is no other way, because the human child is the weakest child. Other animals are born complete. A dog is going to remain a dog his whole life, he is not going to evolve, grow. Yes, he will become aged, old, but he will not become more intelligent, he will not become more aware, he will not become enlightened. In that sense all the animals remain exactly at the point of their birth; nothing essential changes in them. Their death and their birth are horizontal—in one line. Only man has the possibility of going vertical, upwards, not just horizontal.

Man is born in a family amongst human beings. From the very first moment he is not alone; hence, he gets a certain psychology of always remaining with people. In aloneness he starts feeling scared… unknown fears. He is not exactly aware of what he is afraid of, but as he moves out of the crowd something inside him becomes uneasy. It is because of this reason he never comes to know the beauty of aloneness; the fear prevents him.

Fear of being alone

Nobody wants to be alone. The greatest fear in the world is to be left alone. People do a thousand and one things just not to be left alone. You imitate your neighbours, so you are just like them, and you are not left alone. You lose your individuality, you lose your uniqueness, you just become imitators, because, if you are not imitators, you will be left alone.

You become part of the crowd, you become part of a church, you become part of an organisation. Somehow, you want to merge with a crowd where you can feel at ease, that you are not alone, there are so many people like you—so many Mohammedans like you, so many Hindus like you, so many Christians, millions of them. You are not alone.

To be alone is really the greatest miracle. That means now you don’t belong to any Church, you don’t belong to any organisation, you don’t belong to any theology, you don’t belong to any ideology—Socialist, Communist, Fascist, Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist—you don’t belong, you simply are. And, you have learnt how to love your indefinable, ineffable reality. You have come to know how to be with yourself.

Absence of the other

To illustrate one example. If the whole world disappears the Zen master will not miss anything. If suddenly by some magic the whole world disappears, and this Zen master is left alone, he will be as happy as ever; he will not miss anything. He will love that tremendous emptiness, this pure infinity. He will not miss anything, because he has arrived home. He knows that he himself is enough unto himself.

This does not mean that a man who has become enlightened and has come home does not live with others. In fact, only he is capable of being with others. Because, he is capable of being with himself, he becomes capable of being with others. If you are not capable of being with yourself, how can you be capable of being with others?

Learn to be alone

A man who loves his aloneness is capable of love, and a man who feels loneliness is incapable of love.

A man who is happy with himself is full of love, flowing. He does not need anybody’s love; hence, he can give. When you are in need, how can you give? You are a beggar. And, when you can give, much love comes towards you. It is a response, a natural response. The first lesson of love is to learn how to be alone.

Try it, to have the feel. Just sit alone sometimes. That’s what meditation is all about—just sitting alone, doing nothing. Just try. If you start feeling lonely then there is something missing in your being, then you have not been able yet to understand who you are.

Then go deeper into this loneliness until you come to a layer when suddenly loneliness transforms itself into aloneness. It transforms—it is a negative aspect of the same phenomenon.

Loneliness is the negative aspect of aloneness. If you go deeper into it, one moment is bound to come when suddenly you will start feeling the positive aspect of it.

Updated on 19^th September 2019

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