While we continuously chase compliments on our looks, success, skills, and abilities, we often overlook the impact of being nice or kind on people, including ourselves. We fail to realise the weight of what it truly means to be kind and nice.

Ah, social media! Our modern theatre, where the netizens are armed with memes and hashtags. When commenting on Facebook or Instagram, seemingly normal individuals transform into keyboard warriors, ready to wage World War III over the correct usage of “your” vs “you’re.”

Genuine kindness can deepen the shallowest relationships, and turn out to be lifesavers. Being nice is an actual science that does not just help the other person, it also does wonderful things for our brain. Consciously practicing kindness can have real life benefits, from making us feel good to boosting our health through the release of heart-healthy, feel-good hormones. Being nice can activate the part of our brain that has to do with “empathy,” is a natural anxiety antidote that reduces stress and can even help us become more professionally successful.

Empathy is a complex socio-emotional skill to develop.

The man was lying flat on the road, bleeding profusely. He raised his right hand and waved weakly for help. His motorbike was lying two feet away near the road divider only 50 yards off Hotel Radisson.

“It seemed to me that people in the cars do not have empathy for people. While they screamed at me, the pedestrians and poorer ones came to help. What will we do with this so-called education and social status?” Saif writes after the injured man whom three hospitals declined to treat died in his car.