At this time of year, when the calendar fills up and emotions often sit a little closer to the surface, it’s worth reminding ourselves of a simple truth – there are two sides to every story.
Scroll through social media, skim the comments under a news article or listen to snippets of conversation in a café, and you’ll see how quickly people rush to judgement. A single post. A single moment. A single version of events. And from that a verdict is passed. What’s usually missing is context: the unseen pressures, the private worries, the quiet struggles that never make it into the public telling.
My hope, especially during the festive season, is that we pause. Just for a moment. Before criticising. Before tearing someone down. Before adding another sharp comment to an already noisy world. The truth is we rarely know the full story of what someone else is carrying.
This is something I try to remind my own children of, using a phrase many of us grew up with: “If you’ve got nothing nice to say, say nothing.” It’s simple, it’s old-fashioned, and it’s surprisingly hard to live by.
I know this because I regularly fall short myself.
I feel it in the car when someone ahead is dithering at a junction. I feel it in the shops when my queue moves at half the speed of every other one because the person at the front is taking their time. In those moments, kindness isn’t my first response. Frustration is. Impatience is. If I’m honest my reaction usually has far more to do with my own frame of mind than with whatever that other person is doing.
When I’m tired, rushed or already carrying a bit of stress, the world feels less forgiving. When I’m calmer and more present those same situations barely register. The situation hasn’t changed… I have.
That’s why kindness matters so much. Not as a moral badge or a performative gesture, but as a quiet recognition of our shared humanity. We all struggle. Every single one of us. Even those whose behaviour seems to justify our criticism. Even those who frustrate us most.
One of the quotes in my recently published book The Way You See It captures this perfectly: “Kindness begins with the understanding that we all struggle.”
As we move through this season – busy, emotional, and imperfect – my plea is a simple one. Pause. Take a step back. Assume there’s more going on than you can see. And when in doubt, choose kindness. It costs little, but it can mean everything.
Patrick Hickman 