Begin by slowing the first judgment; ask a generous question before offering an opinion. Spend or schedule for others once a week—coffee for a colleague, a note to a neighbor—turning goodwill into muscle memory (Dunn et al., 2008). Protect the absent in conversation; refusing easy disparagement is kindness with a spine. When doubt whispers that your effort is too small, keep count for a month (Otake et al., 2006); patterns, not gestures, change climates. In this way, kindness becomes Baldwin’s kind of clarity: a daily decision to see—and help—the world as it could be. [...]
