Intention vs. Interpretation of Kindness | Emily Waisanen | TEDxFondduLac
[Music] it's Christmas morning and my mom and my dad and my sister and I are all sitting around the Christmas tree opening presents and it's my mom's turn to open the gift for my dad and it's a large box so I'm pretty excited she opens the box and there is a vacuum now don't get me wrong it was a really nice vacuum right and we needed a new one because we had this ancient Kirby and it weighed about 2,000 pounds and I was real painting goos so I'm sure my dad thought well we need a new vacuum and my mom needs a gift so ingo meanwhile my mom was less than thrilled to be receiving an appliance for a task she does not like to do it's just that my dad's intention of the gift did not match my mom's interpretation and therefore a slight conflict occurred now I can happily say that it has all worked out and in fact my parents are here today in this room celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary so rest assured small conflicts can be resolved however what I've observed from this incident and many others over the years is that sometimes the intention of kindness does not match the recipients interpretation and therefore even the best intentions can cause a negative impact know how and why can this be because we're actually just trying to be nice and more importantly how can we resolve this issue well I believe it begins by examining our intentions pausing to consider other possible interpretations and then to create a positive impact so first we need to think about why we do kind things in the first place we need to examine our intentions we need to think about our motivations for our actions and again at first glance this seems obvious because we want to make people happy but if that were the case then why is there conflict well it's true that when we do kind things we feel good about ourselves however when doing kind things we need to start by taking ourselves out of the equation because kindness isn't about ourselves but about others and this is called all tourism it's a difficult mindset to possess but just like anything important it must be practiced conscientiously if our intentions are purely altruistic then perhaps we'll be able to avoid conflict once we've examined our intentions we need to pause and consider other possible interpretations of our kindness prior to being kind we need to think about how the recipient would perceive this kindness now one way to do this is to think about how another person feels valued and we've all heard the Golden Rule treat others the way you would want to be treated but perhaps we need to think about this with a new perspective in their book the Platinum rule dr. Tony Alessandra and Michael Connor have written a new vision of this old adage in which they call the Platinum rule and they state that we need to treat others the way they would want to be treated this is called empathy in her book unselfie dr. Michelle Barbara writes that perspective-taking is the ability to think about another person's thoughts and feelings wants and needs and that this strategy allows us to step into another person's shoes and think about what another person is feeling and see the world from his or her point of view so if we pause before we act and then think of others before ourselves then perhaps we'll be able to avoid conflict and create a positive impact now let's take a look at this on a larger scale as a society we like to do kind things especially during a tragedy or an emergency but once again we need to think about the intention of our kindness in helping and giving and donating with actual impact time after time our well meeting intentions can actually create what humanitarians call the second disaster that's for example after the tragedy in Newtown about 67,000 stuffed animals were sent to the families of the victims of the shooting as as a gesture of comfort and support but what was the town going to do with all of those stuffed animals as they were dealing with this aftermath of the shooting a seemingly kind intention resulted in a disastrous impact because the residents had to figure out where to ship stored these gifts and and kind of ship them all away now I'm in no way suggesting that we stop giving or caring but I am suggesting that we pause and consider our own intention of kindness in many cases especially after our tragedy or a horror acts of kindness can be done as an act of comfort for ourselves with a short-sighted view of the very people we are trying to help and in these cases it is best to pause and research to find out who what where and how we can do the most good instead of doing what feels good so let's bring it back to how we can make our acts of kindness both large and small actually kind first examine your intention examine whether this act of kindness is for self-identification or for the recipient second pause to consider other possible interpretations of this kind Act it can be difficult to realize that your actions may not have the positive impact you're looking for but then finally act altruistically an empathetic for maximum positive impact I believe if we start looking at kindness with a more empathetic and altruistic view we can change the world one kind act at a time thank you [Applause]