Kindness is Underrated (2014)
People often conflate &quot;kindness&quot; with &quot;kid gloves&quot; (for lack of a better term). Being kind doesn&#x27;t have to mean giving &quot;compliment sandwiches&quot; all the time, or avoiding direct feedback. In many contexts, being kind just means being a professional.<p>See Allen&#x27;s comment in the linked post, for example. It&#x27;s direct (&quot;I&#x27;m confused&quot;), but polite. It&#x27;s asking a question of the submitter in a respectful way that&#x27;s likely to engender a productive conversation as opposed to putting people on the defensive. Allen&#x27;s leaving the possibility open that his assumptions are wrong (and often our assumptions are).<p>It quite literally requires less effort - Allen didn&#x27;t have to expend the extra effort to type out &quot;this is stupid&quot;.<p>I guess I don&#x27;t see what&#x27;s so difficult about that particular type of kindness.