In many ways, it seems we’ve lost our expression of compassion and kindness. Last summer, a visitor on our street spilled a goodly amount of gasoline and it ran downhill into a neighbors drive. It was witnessed and by the witness’ account the spill surprised the man who spilled it…apparently he was expecting water to pour out not gasoline. This man drove away and the witness told the neighbor in whose drive the gasoline was spilled.

Several weeks later the spiller returned and the neighbor, spotting the vehicle, went out to speak to him. The man was quite surprised and rather embarrassed and his comment was, “I just didn’t know what to do so I left it.” He then volunteered to come try to clean it up.

He did come and make a good attempt to clean it up and the homeowner was satisfied with his effort even though the spill mark was still quite clear. The homeowner, who spent his career paving things knew the spill mark wouldn’t clean entirely. What he wanted was some acknowledgement that something had gone wrong and an attempt to right it.

Our society, it seems, has become so blaming and damning that a person is sometimes a little fearful to attempt to right a wrong and would rather run away than make an attempt.

In the Kindness Paradigm when a person discovers they’ve done something wrong or disharmonious, or created disharmony, there is a comfort level, an allowance for that person to do their best to correct it. There is compassion held for the committer.