“The single most valuable human trait, the one quality every schoolchild and adult should be taught to nurture, is, quite simply, kindness. Kindness. If you prefer, compassion. Even benevolence. It is the quality that makes people lovely.
If that sounds rather anaemic, it’s because it is the opposite of setting goals and learning how to persuade and close deals; the antithesis of self-reliance and get-what-you-want thinking which form the backbone of modern self-improvement. Its simplicity and obviousness mean that we forget it constantly when we try to impress people, yet it is the most impressive trait we can ever show. It has nothing to do with intelligence or witty banter. We make the mistake of thinking we have to be funny and clever among the ranks the funny and clever, or match the more obvious qualities of people we would like to like us, when in fact few of us seek out in other those outward aspects of personality we ourselves emanate. In fact, we tend to be skeptical of others with similar noticeable qualities to ourselves. That clever person will not like us more if we appear clever ourselves. He will like us more if we are kind, and lovely, and personable, and not trying to be anything else. In an attempt to be socially striking, and in all the contrived effort we go to in order to make ourselves remarkable, we miss how simple the answer really is. Meanwhile, we all know people who possess those qualities we wish we had more of – intelligence or wit, for example – yet if they are not also lovely, we struggle to really like them.”
Derren Brown, in Confessions of a conjurer, p91-92
