Imagine you are an emotionless robot who does not care at all about human life. You have no feelings or empathy at all, zero compassion for the struggles of others, and everything in your existence is a cold calculation designed to maximize your own self-interest.
If this were true, you should be super kind all the time.
In my line of work, I hear stories constantly about people in positions of authority being heartless and cruel. It doesn’t shock me – I know humans have a great capacity for cruelty. What often shocks me is how rapidly that cruelty comes back to bite that person in the ass and then how shocked the person is about it.
I mean, this is a pattern I see repeated more times than I can count:
Employee: [Makes a reasonable request.]
Manager: [Responds in a thoughtless and cruel way.]
Employee: [Quits, and makes manager’s life very hard.]
Manager: [Shocked face.]
Variations on the theme abound, but the central lesson is clear: Even if you don’t actually care at all, pretending to have a heart is absolutely to your benefit.
I’m a pragmatist. I don’t see a lot of difference between pretending to be kind and being kind, as long as they both lead to the same actions. If someone gives a hundred dollars to charity because they genuinely care about the cause, and someone else gives a hundred dollars because they don’t want their employees to think they’re a miser, then the charity still gets two hundred dollars. So to my way of thinking, everyone pretending to be kind would actually be a huge improvement, even if no one’s heart moved a millimeter.
Make kindness and compassion your default reaction, regardless of how you actually feel. Everyone’s life – especially yours, if that’s what you care about – will improve.
The Opportunity Machine 