DailyJim: Never stop being so kind

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. This is the episode for Tuesday, July 23rd, just slightly after the hour has passed, 2024. Today I want to talk about never or stop being so kind. So the title will be like never in parentheses, stop being so kind. Um the idea with this is i received a message from a friend earlier and the person said stop being so kind and the implication was hey i'm gonna fall for you and i think we say this to people all the time stop being so kind why are you being so nice to me what's the trick why you be so nice to that person stop being so nice to that person you know the person doesn't care about you? Why are you being so nice to them? Why are you always so nice?

Why are you always so kind? Kind, nice, it's a whole conversation we could have separately. But these things come up, this phrase comes up very often. And I think sometimes we say it to the person interacting with us, why are you being so kind to me or stop being so kind to me? A.k.a. maybe I don't deserve this level of kindness or the statement as my friend said don't be so kind to me because if you are then I will start to get really close to you and really attached and I don't want to get close, I don't want to get attached to you stop making me attached to you, hey, this brings up a lot of stuff because I think this happens in many, many interactions that I have with people people. And I really debate it. And I kind of fought back to my friend, I said, no, no, screw that. Like I'm going to freaking attack people with love. Like I'm going to attack with kindness, good luck. And I've been debating this so much because...

Kindness can make a lot of people feel really uncomfortable because we start to feel a level of closeness and attachment to the other person. And we may fear that for many reasons. Maybe it's because we grew up in a culture that said you're not allowed to feel so close to people of that group. Maybe it's because we're in a monogamous relationship and we're not supposed to feel that's so close or attached to somebody outside of the relationship.

Maybe it's because we were with somebody in the past and we don't want to feel those feelings again, as somebody had told me before. Yeah, I promised myself I wouldn't feel those feelings for you again. Maybe, yeah, we have been hurt or betrayed and even a business relationship or something. And if the person is being kind, then we might think of getting into that relationship. We might think of becoming much closer to that person again. And then the fear comes up. Maybe it doesn't even have to do with the specific person. Maybe we have been hurt. Or yeah, we have gone through a lot of pain and loss in a different area or with a different person that kind of reminds us of that that person. And we're like, I'm not doing this again. I have been through this again. So you stop being so nice. Stop being so kind. Stop making me want to like you. Stop making me like you. Stop being likable. Stop being lovable. Stop being trustworthy.

We say these things to people a lot, Whether we directly say it or whether we imply them. You, stop being this way because I don't want to feel these things. I don't want to feel the love, so stop being lovable. Stop being so charming because I don't want to feel charmed. I don't want to feel, I don't want to fall so close to you. Again, this can apply to business. Stop being, I mean, yeah, we tell people to stop being mean. We tell people to stop being quiet. But a lot of times I think we do tell people to stop being kind, stop being lovable, stop being trustworthy, stop making me want to like you.

And I haven't known what to do with this. Because a part of me says, okay, okay, I'll try to not be so likable, but I don't try it very long because I've been training in how to respond to people with love because I feel so much better when I do that. So how do I respond to people in a very kind, loving way? Yeah, but then they get angry. No, stop it. I told you, stop being so kind.

Contained. Maybe I've shared this before, but someone once told me, I told you I don't want to be in a relationship and you're doing everything that would convince me to be in a relationship. I'm like, what? So I should be more mean? I should ignore you more? I should call you names? I should blame you? I should ghost you? I should pretend like I don't care? What should I do more? So if if you want me to stop being so kind, you want me to start being more mean? You want me to start being more avoidant? You want me to start being more what?

And actually, I think that's a fascinating question. Because a lot of times we focus on, I just want this thing to stop. And then I say, okay, so what do you want to start? Actually, I don't really say that. But I might say that now. What do you actually want to start then? Stop being so kind. Stop making me like, okay, you want me to make you hate you? Make you hate me? One person also said that to me once. It was, I think I was being so nasty to you because I wanted you to hate me. And I was like, well, that's not going to work. I'm actually really good at responding with kindness and love. Good luck. But me laughing about that, I think overlooks how much it actually can anger a lot of people and frustrate a lot of people and overwhelm people and make people afraid. And I just don't know what to do. I want to, ironically, if the idea is to respond to people with love, or to respond people with kindness, and they're telling me, stop being so kind.

Is the kind thing to do to stop being so kind? Or the loving thing to do is to stop being so loving? Is that what would be the most loving? Maybe towards them, maybe in the short term. In the long term, is that what's the most kind or most loving? Isn't it the most kind or loving thing to do for myself as well? Or for other people in my life? Because can I selectively shut off the kindness? Only be kind and loving towards this person, but this person, okay, a little bit less. this person, okay, just ignore them a little more. You want to love them, but no, no, they don't want it. So just kind of pretend you don't like them and ignore them and do all this stuff so that they don't feel too attached to you. I feel attached to them, but I don't want to do too much so that they feel attached because that's the most loving way to treat them. I don't know if that's true. I think sometimes love can piss us off. I'm sure I've mentioned before, but there There was a quote in Ted Lasso. I think it was from a famous feminist. And I think I said this exact same way last time. But it was something like, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

And I think that might be the same with kindness and especially love. Hey, kindness and love will set us free, but first it might piss us off because we don't trust it. Or because like we said, we start to fall and we are afraid to fall because maybe that kindness is just going to go away. The proverbial, by say proverbial, I mean, what recent last 20, 30 year concept of love bombing, this idea that someone will love us and they're only loving us because they want to receive a specific thing. And once they receive that thing, they leave. First of all, I think that is a drastic misunderstanding of how human beings operate. Incorporate I think most of us don't go in for that I think what happens is that we do feel the love and then we freak out and then we go I don't want to feel so attached to this person let me run away or the person rejects us over and over again and we're like man like I showed all this love I felt all this love and now I'm just tired I'm done but I think it's often more of the fear of being attached we love and love and love while the other person's running away but when they come back and start loving us, we go, ah, don't love me so much because I'm really going to fall in love and now I'm terrified. It's easy to love you when you're running away, but it's hard to love you when you stand right in front of me and look deeply in my eyes. That's much harder. So I think so much of this fear of us attaching to someone else and getting really close to that other person, that other person leaving us physically or worse emotionally, and then us not.

And us being stuck there, thinking about them, wanting to talk to them, wanting to interact with them, and them just being gone. And maybe that is, in essence, one of the hardest parts of life.

There was a quote, it said, grief is love, and it's something about, it's all the love that we wanted to give, but we are no longer able to give. It's the phone calls, it's the dinners, it's the reaching, it's the smiles, the facial expressions. It's holding each other's hand. It's all of these things. It's helping somebody move furniture. It seems like basic things, handshakes that we can no longer give. And to truly enjoy doing these things with somebody means that eventually they will end. They will end if the person, if we get into a breakup or if the person moves to a different place or the company falls apart or two mutual friends get into a fight and we have to choose sides or countries go into war or frankly, all of us or one of them dies. At the end of the day, if we're still alive, then we are losing these interactions with other people. We are losing these abilities. We are losing the ability maybe to think or speak as well as we used to or be able to run or to exercise or perform different physical or intellectual or emotional abilities. We lose these over time and that self can be... A lot of pain and sadness, the loss. But the alternative is to stop being so kind and just either be mean or numb and not enjoy conversations with people, not appreciate somebody picking us up when we've fallen, not getting excited to go see a movie with a friend, And not trying something new and going through the uncertainty of feeling like an idiot. But then the accomplishment and the pride of having finished a task that we've never attempted before.

If we stop being so kind, if we stop being so loving, if we stop caring so much about life, then it's almost as if we should probably just be dead.

So for me i want to never stop being so kind i want to be even more kind i want to be even more loving i want to care more about life i want to lift people up i want to put a sparkle in people's eyes i want to put a sparkle in my own eye i want to have the full range because life is short and we don't have a lot of opportunities to feel these things we don't have a lot of opportunities to live As far as many of us know, we have one opportunity in this current form. Maybe there are other forms, but we have one opportunity to live life as we are living life.

And why not try? Why not feel?

Why not piss people off by being really kind and really loving and really open and really vibrant and vital and effervescent. Okay, maybe that's not the word. But this idea of just brimming with energy, instead of just waiting for it all to end. What if we actually appreciated that it was happening?

And just, as Alan Watts would say, Dance along to the music instead of waiting for the end crash, the end symbol. It's about the dancing that we do along the way.

On that note, I hope you appreciated this. I feel out of breath, but also grateful and quite proud. I like this one today. So hope you all like it or hate it or just feel something, damn it. All right. Talk to y'all tomorrow. Talk to y'all tomorrow. Bye.