http://tinybuddha.com/blog/being-kind-when-its-seen-as-a-weakness/
(there are many nice articles to read and I don't know which
one to choose and so I random picked one here :p )
Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by linnaea
bohn
“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who
can do him absolutely no good.” ~Samuel Johnson
When I worked in the corporate world, I didn’t focus on a race
to the top. I enjoyed the day-to-day work of running a product
line,
finding
opportunities for new markets, and helping
managers in other countries launch similar lines tailored to their
markets.
My approach was to be ethical in all aspects of the work, to
have concern for the people I was working with to achieve results,
and to share the credit appropriately. This was not the latest
“management style,” nor was it proven.
The most senior managers saw the bottom line increase
and gave me more responsibility and a promotion, while immediate
supervisors discredited me since I was not like them.
A transfer to Asia fortunately took me out of the quagmire of
home office politics. I felt the freedom to continue managing in a
way that was natural to me: to encourage my teams with kindness,
cooperation, and credit while we increased market share and the
bottom line.
My staff felt safe and enjoyed their work. The division
prospered.
However, my immediate superior didn’t value my approach. He
viewed it as a sign of weakness that I was caring and thoughtful,
and that I cooperated and shared with each colleague.
Even though I had added millions to the bottom line, I
lost my job, my career.
When I’d started an MBA years before, I’d dreamed of changing the world in some
significant way by helping others. There was no major in that, so I
did an independent major: marketing for not-for-profits.
It was hard to find a job after graduation, since arts
organizations in the mid 1970s didn’t see the need to hire an MBA.
I realized that if I wanted to share knowledge and skills to change
the world in some way, and do it while being kind, I had to go
solo.
I went on a solo trek to the Himalayas to clear my mind and
spent a month meditating at a small monastery near Kathmandu. I
then journeyed to India for a healing purification retreat.
Months later at a Buddhist initiation, I heard the Boddhisattva
vows. They were about putting others before self, being kind,
keeping’s one’s word, and more. I breathed a sigh of relief. I felt
like I’d come home.
I wanted to put those vows into practice in a practical way. At
first I thought I would return to Hong Kong as an entrepreneur and
send my earnings to Tibetans to start refugee schools. I learned,
however, that it would be more beneficial to help refugees create
opportunities for work. So I did.
I made the Himalayas my home, and volunteered to help
Tibetan refugees develop small enterprises based on their skills
and suited to their temperament and culture. This way they could
become economically self-sufficient, eliminating the need for
charitable donations.
My neighbors in the village where I lived were Punjabi
widows—refugees themselves, without any income. Yet they could knit
well. I helped them turn their lives around by teaching them
designs, colors, and sizes that were in style. I also showed them
how to sell these sweaters locally on their own.
It felt so natural to be kind and help others there.
Kindness was a way of life for many.
A story that comes to mind involves a woman and a dog.
Dogs that are not used as shepherds in the Himalayas are feral.
They look for scraps and fight a lot. People are terrified of the
packs.
One day I heard a puppy whimpering. Village children, who had
taken it as a temporary toy, helped me retrace their path to place
the pup near a sibling. The mother dog came out of hiding to wash
and feed the pup. Her bony body somehow produced milk for five
puppies.
From that day I cooked brown rice and eggs for her, concerned
that she herself would starve from feeding them. I would leave the
food near the home she’d dug for her family under a log in a small
wooded area.
One day that spring there was a long, slow snowstorm that
prevented me from feeding her.
At daybreak the next day I placed some food near her shelter,
but she didn’t come out. I waited and then slowly approached the
hole. There was a snow-covered burlap sac covering the mouth of the
shelter, but not one dog. Someone had been kind to protect the
family from the storm, but the dogs were gone.
As I walked though the small woods looking for them, I noticed a
house. A woman came to the door. Using hand signs and imitating the
whimpering sounds of pups, I asked if she had seen the dogs.
She took me by the hand to a tiny abode. On the veranda of this
one room structure was a woman cooking a small copper pot of rice
on a stick fire. Around the fire were the mom and pups, lying
comfortably and soaking in the warmth. The woman’s own children and
husband were inside under a blanket on the single rope cot.
This frail bodied woman from Rajastan, in her thin
cotton sari and shawl, shared her family’s only pot of rice with
the dog family.
She and her husband were day laborers, carrying boulders on
their heads as roads were being excavated through the
mountains.
They earned less than a dollar a day for their combined work. In
a bare room with a doorway as the only opening, they lived with
clothes suited for the 120 degree heat of the desert, eating one
meal a day.
This woman unflinchingly shared her food with this female dog
and her puppies. She didn’t have much to give, but that didn’t stop
her from giving what she could.
I had come to India to help others, with a vision to change the
world in some small but significant way. Yet without intent,
education, or desire, this woman changed my life in a very
significant way. Her instinctive kindness that received no
appreciation, let alone results or rewards, softened my heart.
I see that being a kind human has value in any
walk of life. This is what I took with me into future work. Even
though I many not be the manager other people want me to be, I am
valuable in any organization because I am
kind.
I care about the people who work around me. I care about each
individual client, customer, and colleague. This may not be a
prerequisite for a successful career, but it’s my prerequisite for
a successful life.
Each kindness changes the world. Being kind is what makes my
world significant.
Whatever values you hold dear—whether it’s kindness, gentleness,
calmness, or honesty—live it. Be it, even if the people around you
don’t seem to value the same things; especially if the people
around you don’t seem to value those things. That might be the very
reason you came into their lives.
http://tinybuddha.com/
