Sometimes our goodness gets confused as our weakness. When we approach people and situations with kindness and a win-win approach rather than being aggressive, we often get taken for granted and people assume they can get the better of us.  They forget that it takes the strength of conviction and character to navigate life with gentleness.

When in a tough negotiation, we leave something behind to help find a way forward and bring things to a closure, it comes from understanding the potential of the future and moving on, not from a position of weakness.

When we trust someone implicitly and don’t need to always check on things, it comes from the strongest bond of faith and trust, not from our simplicity. When people break our trust, thinking they have pulled one over us, we bypass them and move on in life, but never bypassing our firm conviction in the value of building relations on the basis of trust. Moving on gracefully comes from strength, not weakness.

When people behave badly, and yet we continue conducting ourselves in a manner befitting our value system, it is not the lack of ability to also hit back. It comes from a space where we don’t need to react, but rather respond decently, as we well understand that our growth lies in our behaviour. Behaving decently even in adversity comes from strength, not weakness.

It is true that there are times we need to assert ourselves. But being good, gentle, graceful, and decent in no way takes away from our ability to rise to the occasion when we have to. It is the gentle breeze that becomes a storm and the calm water that has the ability to reach boiling point. Our goodness carries a silent strength, which not everyone can understand, and not something we need to keep displaying all the time.

In a world riddled with mistrust, aggression, and evil, sometimes it is easy to believe that to succeed we need to do whatever it takes. People often think that one can either be good or successful. Nothing is farther than the truth; one can be good and successful. Yes, the path of goodness sometimes takes longer, because we don’t allow ourselves the shortcuts and the space to deviate from our path. But staying on the straight and narrow path comes from strength, not weakness.

We find ourselves having to fight for things in this complex world. But not all fights need a sword to be drawn, causing pain and destruction. Sometimes, we need to find a delicate, but an extremely strong solution. And we can only find that in the needle of goodness.

(Picture – Art installation in the old town of Basel)