We’ve always known it, haven’t we? We’ve known that we are all family, that we are all connected. And… we’ve known that our acts of kindness celebrate and sustain that connection.Sometimes we forget though. Perhaps we lose the knowledge.
It’s easy to find though. It’s right there in our language. There’s kin in our kindness; our kindness embraces our kin.
That’s no coincidence. Both words – kin and kindness – derive from the same etymological roots. The Proto-Germanic word kundjaz (meaning family, race) is the grand-kin of both words. Before that, the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word gene is an ancient forebear. Meaning to give birth, to beget, it is clearly the foundation of many English words such as generate, genome, generation, generous, and congenial.
A few iterations also gives us kin and kind.
When we remember this linguistic connection it becomes much easier to understand our human connection and inter-relatedness. Then, it becomes quite normal and routine to show kindness to our kin.
So, on this World Kindness Day,1 let us recall that we are all kin and allow ourselves to offer some kindness.
Note:
1. World Kindness Day (13 November) is an initiative of the World Kindness Movement.
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