Nice moves:

The worst times often bring out the best in human nature, so don’t waste what you have learned in this global crisis.

Hugh Mackay on how to start a kindness revolution

Doyou ever find yourself despairing about ‘man’s inhumanity to man’? Do you wonder whether the wearying gender wars will ever end? Are you shocked by the violence in our society? Do you sometimes shake your head in disgust at the behaviour of politicians in our parliament?

Are you saddened when you hear people abusing each other?

Yes, there is plenty of ugly stuff in the world, but that’s not the whole story. Just look at the everyday acts of kindness, compassion and co-operation going on around us all the time, mostly unremarked.

The people who stop to help total strangers out of a jam. Those who help a frail, elderly man or woman cross a busy street, or get on and off a bus. Those who, night after night, week after week, year after year, volunteer their services to help feed the poor and homeless.

Those who rush to the aid of people affected by floods or fires. Those who devote big chunks of their week to patrolling surf beaches, or training as bushfire-fighters, or coaching underprivileged kids’ sporting teams, or helping slow readers at the local school or migrants struggling with English.

The thousands of retired schoolteachers who volunteered to coach pupils who had been disadvantaged by the pandemic lockdown. The people who plant trees for the pleasure of future generations, knowing they themselves will never sit in their shade or pick their fruit.

Those who always say hello as they pass you in the street, though they may never see you again.

The list could go on and on, but even those items should save you from despair by reminding you that the good deeds far outnumber the bad. And that’s because the tendency to behave kindly is an inherent part of human nature. We’re a social species after all; built to co-operate with each other; dependent on families, groups, neighbourhoods and communities of all kinds to sustain and nurture us and to provide the emotional security that comes from a sense of belonging.

Because we need some measure of social harmony in order to survive, our brains are wired for kindness and co-operation: that capacity is perhaps our species’ most precious asset. It’s true that we often undervalue it

in favour of more ego-driven, competitive impulses, but when we’re being true to the ‘better angels’ of our nature, we’re capable of great kindness, even towards people we don’t particularly like and could never agree with. As Samuel Johnson wrote, 250 years ago: ‘Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.’

During the pandemic, we drew on our capacity for kindness on a massive scale. By making personal sacrifices for the common good, we showed we understand what it means to be members of an interdependent, co-operative species. We demonstrated our willingness to take responsibility for each other’s wellbeing. The question is: are we ready to apply the lessons we have learned from the pandemic generally?

‘Don’t waste a crisis!’ sounds like weird advice, but there’s some wisdom in it: having reminded ourselves, yet again, how we should behave towards each other in a crisis, let’s go on behaving in that same kind, caring, mutually respectful way. Let’s turn the crisis into a kindness revolution!

If we really wanted to transform into a society we’d all be proud to be part of, where should we start? What should we do differently?

We certainly shouldn’t look to governments for leadership, since much of what disappoints us about the contemporary stems from our politics. In fact, we shouldn’t look to anyone but ourselves. This kind of transformation takes place one person at a time; one relationship, one family, one street, one school, one workplace at a time. It starts with us.

And the best place to start is with our listening skills. To have real impact on the culture we live in, we need to become more attentive, empathic listeners. Why? Simply because the deepest of all our human needs (apart from the need for food, drink and shelter) is the need to be taken seriously; to be heard; to be appreciated; to be acknowledged; to be respected for who we are.

Being listened to is a therapeutic experience. That’s why attentive listening is one of the most precious gifts we can give each other. It’s one of the most potent symbols of love and friendship. It’s one of the loveliest expressions of kindness to strangers. It’s one of the greatest sources of encouragement to the discouraged, confidence to the insecure and comfort to the emotionally wounded.

And the converse is also true.

When we don’t listen carefully and sensitively to another person – whether a partner, a child, a colleague, a friend or a total stranger – then, without needing to say a word, we have conveyed the impression that we don’t take that person seriously enough to bother listening to them.

How hurtful do you think that unspoken message might be to the person who receives it? If it happened repeatedly, might it not become a major source of frustration? And might that frustration eventually boil over into rage, or spiral into despair?

When we fail to listen, we jeopardise people’s sense of self-worth. But when we listen with empathy, we provide a safe haven for another person’s thoughts. Of course, there’s more to a kindness revolution than all of us becoming more attentive, empathic listeners – though that would be a brilliant start. Here are four more things we can do:

• Be ready with a smile, a wave, a greeting for everyone you meet to show them you take them seriously enough to acknowledge them.

• Accept people as they are. You don’t have to like someone to act kindly towards them.

• Respect everyone you meet. Regardless of our differences, we all share a common humanity.

• Engage with your neighbourhood. Volunteer, join a choir, a community garden, a book club – anything that will put you more closely in touch with the people you live amongst.

By making such simple things part of our normal way of living, we can indeed start a revolution. Why hesitate? Isn’t it time to stop rolling our eyes about ‘the state of the nation’ and do something constructive? As the Bengali poet, writer and composer Rabindranath Tagore put it: ‘You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.’

If we dare to dream of a more loving country – more compassionate, more co-operative, more respectful, more inclusive, more egalitarian, less cynical – there’s only one way to start turning the dream into reality: each of us needs to live as if this is already that kind of country.

If enough of us live like that, change will come. Revolutions never start at

the top.

Social psychologist Hugh Mackay’s new book, The Kindness Revolution, is published by Allen & Unwin. On sale May 4.