I’m a quick thinker- well, at least in the sense that it doesn’t take me long to form an opinion: if something sounds good, I’ll usually take it on board without giving it too much of my mind space and time, then use it when I need to. This also happened with the “Kill them with kindness” phrase. It sounds good: it’s always great to be kind and that’s that. I heard it and I liked it.
And then something strange happened :D. I started thinking about what I ACTUALLY think about this sentence and why it felt off.
(Sidenote: wow, does all this sound horrible: I feel like I’m a loonie who never thinks of anything and now I’m putting that “confession” on the internet :D. I’m sure I’m not the only one out there with a mind as quick to form an opinion as mine is, so that’s okay too, I guess.)
I usually let phrases like this help me with certain situations and this particular little sentence helped me out when I felt a little disappointed with someone’s rudeness and lack of manners towards me. So I said to myself:”Smile and kill them with kindness.”
The phrase suddenly felt off to me. Why?
If you split the phrase into two parts, you get, of course: 1. Kill them, 2. With kindness.
The second part is not a problem … duh. But the killing part? Killing is never, under any circumstance a good thing. So you’re essentially hurting someone by being kind to them. To me, that means that when someone is being nasty to you and they expect you to retaliate, you fight back with being overly kind and thus making their lives even worse, because now they feel beaten by you: you’re the bigger person and they’re petty and small. You’ve won, they’ve lost. Ha ha!
How long does this “Ha ha!” moment last? How does it make you feel? Probably like a five-minute winner.
And it works, this way of hurting someone by being really really nice to them (possibly with a nice cynical smile). It works if you’re a child (a child that will hopefully overgrow this way of dealing with a certain situation), or an adult with quite a lot of personal growth that still needs to be attained.
Killing someone with kindness is just another way of being mean. It’s so hard not to be petty sometimes and not let the inner child come through and just rip someone up with words (it’s even worse when you act like you’re not phased and you’re just simply being a lovely person towards someone being extra mean). I know it’s super hard and being cynical and extra nice is so easy, plus it seems so rewarding.
But you really have nothing to gain in the long run.
Kindness should never be a weapon. People will sometimes be nasty and hurtful: it doesn’t matter if you’re the world’s kindest or meanest person. It will happen and there’s not much you can do about that. It’s up to you to make sure that no matter what, you stay true to yourself. Be a winner for life and strive to stay gracious when you feel attacked, don’t stoop to a level you’ll regret later. It’s not worth the loveliness that is you. Instead of “Kill them with kindness” think “Cure them with kindness”.