“All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.”
CS Lewis
Kindness doesn’t just happen.
For some people, it seems effortless—like they wake up radiating warmth while the rest of us are still deciding whether to be decent or just caffeinated. But for most of us, kindness is a choice.
And some days, it’s work.
I’m not naturally good at it. I’d love to say I am, but I can be moody, impatient, and far too good at justifying both. It’s easy to tell myself I’m tired or stressed or “just being real.” But the truth is, being kind—especially when you don’t feel like it—is harder than it looks.
Which is why I’ve started to think that kindness, like anything worth becoming, starts as an act.
You fake it.
Not in the dishonest sense—but in the practice sense. The way you play an instrument before you know a song.
You act how the person you want to be would act.
Because that’s how growth works.
You don’t become a good cook and then start cooking. You burn a few meals, ruin a pan or two, and somewhere along the way, dinner starts tasting like home.
You don’t become patient and then start waiting. You wait badly, check your watch too often, and eventually learn to breathe instead of fume.
Kindness works the same way.
You start practicing it before it feels natural.
You speak gently when you’d rather be right.
You listen longer than your attention span allows.
You let someone merge in traffic (even though you saw that blinker go on way too late).
And maybe that’s the secret—not perfection, but practice.
We become what we practice being.
And if that’s true, then every small act matters more than we realize.
Every time I choose grace over irritation, or generosity over self-protection, I’m laying down another layer of who I’m becoming.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the pretending fades—and something truer takes its place.
We don’t wake up as better people.
We practice our way there.
