I was a pretty ambitious student during my fifth form (the year that I start to view academics seriously), I went to a near bookstore from my house because I want to get revision books (contrary to popular beliefs, I actually made myself complete all of it). In my eagerness while picking books, I underestimated the price of them and it ends up with my total purchase a bit higher than the budget my mom gave me. As someone who lack of social skill, I didn’t know what to do (staring at the cashier awkwardly) but I managed to consider removing one of my books - of course they are other alternative, like asking my mom for more money, but I didn’t feel like it. At that time, I really liked all the books I chose, so It was pretty hard to not remove a book (the cashier probably noticed it), I was a bit dimmed by that thought. Then, the cashier offered to pay for the extra, I was surprised and she insisted. I will never forget this no one has been kind enough to help me before, I flabbergasted for the rest of the evening. Recalling back this experience, the lady really didn’t have to do it, but she did anyway. That is when my perspective of people shift, I was very sceptic as a kid (still am but better), maybe people aren’t bad as I thought they were.

Introduction

As far as my anecdote goes, you’ve read an example of unconditional kindness, and surprisingly to strangers. The more I reflect about it, the more I am inspire to become one of this person. Coming upfront, I havent been kindful enough to people and as days goes it keeps eating me up about I could’ve been more useful and helpful to other people instead being a burden. In the effort of dissecting the philosophy behind this action, I’m mixing respect and humilty to the discussion as these are the area that I want to improvise.
Just a disclaimer, I’m not an expert in this field, just arguments that I try to construct.

Kindness, Respect, Humility

Often we say someone is kind, what does this mean? Kindness is roughly defined as being generous than what is normally done, remember the keyword ‘normally’. A kind person would extent their help than what is required to fulfill needs/wants of another life, be it human or animal, usually without expecting anything in return. Kindness can either be an intentional or unintentional act, either way its still a good thing to do. Kindness can be subjective mainly because your action is compared to the standard treatment by the society (inherently affected by time and place). In a busy road, it is surprising to see someone going their way to help another person while in a team-building camp it is expected for you to help. Do you think there is any difference of kindness in both situation?

Introspectively, respecting someone is the ability to view a person par to yourself or beyond that. Often, we respect someone who shares similar value as us, or any value that we recognize - though might not posses. Respect is more individualistic than kindness, it depends on the beliefs of a person and what they value. Respect can emerge in a positive or negative situation: If two person were to compete against each other to their upmost ability, both are usually respected (could be spectators etc).

Humility is a bit the opposite of respect (not literally, but the way it works), it is when we put our ego down and treat others as equal, at least this is how I view it. Humility is closely related to confidence, a confident person may posses greater humility than their counterpart. Ego in many cases are the product of fear, and being able to reassure yourself, helps a lot in controlling your ego.

Nurturing these characteristics

I couldn’t take any credit for what I’m gonna write below, I learned a lot about people’s kindness, respect and humility during my time in IB. I couldn’t help myself to compare myself to them, they’re so smart, kind and knows how to navigate their life. At first I thought “I can’t be like them, how are they so good at many things and the confidence that they have, I’m nothing”, and when I think like this, its counter-intuitive cuz of course I wanna be like them but instead I mental blocked myself from considering these behaviour as a way of improvement, so to speak “If I can’t why should I try?”.

Today, though I might understand this entirely, I guess we shouldn’t self-sabotage ourselves, and try to be optimistic despite knowning failure is on its way. If the first thought was it’s impossible then its gonna be impossible because you will never try to take the first step.

An important note too, they are confident with themself - even if not ideally confident, but the self-containment that they have are impressive - which allows them to have a higher capacity of humility (I won’t make any assumption of what people think, I can only derive from what I saw). Because one that is insecure would have their ego easier to be shattered. This is what I meant by confidence, it is something that I’m trying to work on.

When I can’t understand a person’s feeling, I would often put myself in their shoe. That’s the quickest way to put into perspective of what could the person felt. I find this method incredible because essentially it uses the idea of “treat others like how you want to be treated” and of course you want to be treated as a respectful human being.

Hope for myself and others

I’m not the worst person, neither the best, after 2 years in the ib I believe (no pun) these three chracteristics that I want to nurture myself in. I hope that other people understand my perspective and work slowly in equpping themself with the attitudes. Tbh, I don’t know what else to write hahaha. Peace.