When people often tell me I'm kind, I sometimes feel a sense of discomfort in my heart. It's not because I'm kind, but because I'm actually just weak. I don't want to cause trouble. I don't want to be disliked. I'm afraid of ruining the atmosphere. So I go along with the other person, swallow my words, and put myself on the back burner. When they call this "kindness," I feel somehow uncomfortable. To me, these actions were meant to protect myself, rather than for the other person's sake.

We often think of kindness as "something we do for others." But in reality, much kindness is like a way of adjusting that we've acquired to survive in relationships. Avoiding conflict. Not ruining relationships. Maintaining the atmosphere. These are certainly choices made to avoid hurting someone else. At the same time, they are also choices made to avoid getting hurt ourselves. That's why thoughts like, "I'm not really a good person," may begin to cross my mind.

No one is willing to break ties with others and live alone. Everyone worries about what others think of them, and lives their life while being careful to protect their connections with others and their own position. If this anxiety about connections with others can be called "weakness," then all people interact with others while harboring weaknesses in their hearts. A "weak self" is not a "bad self." The problem begins only when kindness becomes tied to forcing ourselves. Wanting to say no, but not being able to. Smiling even though you're actually tired. Pretending to understand even though you don't. When this state of affairs continues, kindness gradually becomes a burden. The more you try to be kind, the more you are worn down. I think that feeling creates the feeling that "this isn't true kindness."

Perhaps true kindness is kindness that doesn't force itself. Before doing something for someone else, make sure you're not broken. Your feelings haven't been completely left behind. When that balance is protected, kindness does not leave behind exhaustion.

Kindness is not something that should require effortful performance.

It is neither forced strength nor indulgent self-leniency.

True kindness is what lasts the longest. It is what remains with us.

There is no single correct shape for it.

Within relationships, it slowly changes form, leaving enough space for us to breathe.

What we once thought was "kindness born from weakness" may, seen from another angle, have been our own way of protecting ourselves while still trying to stay connected to others.