“A couple of days ago, Mrs Clarence reminded me of a saying, the original sayer of which I do not remember. Perhaps it was Mrs Clarence herself.

The saying goes like this: 

you can say almost anything to people, speak your truth to anyone, as long as you say it kindly

Which feels like a rule worthy of being put to the test in these fractious, polarized, and estranged times.

Kindness, of course, like compassion, can easily devolve into niceness if one is not careful, if we define niceness as a practice of bypassing differences and avoiding anything risky or contentious in order to keep the peace. This is why, in Mrs Clarence’s saying, kindness gets directly paired with truth-telling. Because sometimes the kindest and most compassionate thing to do is to tell the truth, no matter how risky it feels, or how potentially contentious the subject matter, or how nice it might be judged by polite society.

And, as both Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson have said recently, telling the truth of your experience can give you access to incredible new levels of personal power.”




A beautiful truth!
Extracted with thanks from this link:
https://clarencetheseventeenth.substack.com/p/kindness-and-truth-telling