Growing up, I had this friend. She and I had been close since childhood because our dads lived together at the same university, and while it wasn’t a friendship that was really beneficial to me in any way, I could never really wean myself from it.
    As children, our lack of mutual interests was easily ignored. What more do you need in common in elementary school besides a love for the Jonas Brothers and an affinity for Limited Too? However, as the years passed, it became apparent my friend and I not only had nothing in common, but we were also complete opposites. While I was feminine and bookish, my friend was sporty and funny. Despite these great qualities, my friend always felt the need to overcompensate in order to cover up her shortcomings, and it didn’t take long before her sportiness morphed into aggressiveness and her humor became uncouth and cruel.
    Other friends continually asked me, “Catie Marie, how do you put up with her? Doesn’t it bother you that she borrows your clothes and returns them stained and torn? Doesn’t it annoy you that she doesn’t have a nice word to say about anything? Have you noticed the way she manipulates you into only doing what she wants?” And the thing is, all of these things bothered me. My friend was rude, negative and manipulative, and yet, I stood by her. I always responded to these accusations with a smile and a kind word. “I know she can be a little rough around the edges, but she’s my friend. So how about that geography test?”
    So yes, I was a good friend to this girl. We didn’t stay besties, but never did an unkind word escape my lips on her behalf because, in my own words, “she was my friend.” But this is not a testament of how well I treated an old friend. This is an acknowledgement of how poorly I treated everyone else.
  There were people in my high school who were much more interesting than my friend. There were people who were smarter, nicer and funnier. And yet, for whatever reason, I did not utilize my four years at a relatively small high school to cultivate friendships with these people. I didn’t take the time to dip beneath the surface and search out those who simply floated beneath my social radar. These people were worth knowing, maybe just not to my high school self.
    I treated kindness as a currency. I assumed that I only had so much to give, and the only ones worth my words of encouragement were those who benefited me in some way or played with me in the sprinklers on summer nights while my parents watched.
    This past May, George Saunders, bestselling American author, delivered the convocation speech at Syracuse University in New York. I recently stumbled across a transcription of it online, and I was extremely convicted by its central theme. In the speech, Saunders tells the story of a quiet girl from whom he “withheld kindness” in elementary school. Saunders said his biggest regret in life — a life laced with heartache, disease and financial uncertainty — was that he neglected to reach out to this girl. He then proceeds to tell the students his recipe for a successful life, which is, in his opinion, to “err on the side of kindness.”
    Inside every human being is a bright, gorgeous light, which Saunders believes is an incredible asset to the human race. Saunders said, “that luminous part of you that exists beyond personality — your soul, if you will — is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Teresa’s. Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists. Come to know it better. Nurture it. Share its fruits tirelessly.”
   To withhold this light is to rob the world of a lovely gift. In the words of Saunders, “It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: try to be kinder.” Kindness is a fountain that never runs out, so pour it upon others ceaselessly.