02/28/2026
You can be kind to animals, the retail worker you encountered, and every last stranger you meet. Kindness in public doesn’t determine character though, kindness at home does. Strangers don’t carry our history, or activate our wounds, or mirror back the parts of ourselves we’ve avoided for years. Your spouse, children, and pets do though. I guess the uncomfortable truth is that if all your graciousness is saved for strangers, that’s not really kindness. It’s image management. Maybe even virtue signaling. The better measure of character isn’t how nice we can be to the checker at the store. It’s more in the every day interactions with the people closest to us. The tone with which we speak to our kids, the patience we offer to our spouses, and a million other little things inbetween will ultimately determine the longevity of those relationships, but also defines who you really are.
