There's no dearth of kindness In the world of ours; Only in our blindness We gather thorns for flowers. — Gerald Massey

There's no dearth of kindness In the world of ours; Only in our blindness We gather thorns for flowers.

Author: Gerald Massey

Insight: We tend to think of kindness as something we need to hunt for—a rare treasure hidden behind closed doors or locked inside special people. But this quote suggests the opposite: kindness is everywhere. The problem isn't that it's scarce. The problem is that we're not seeing it. This matters because it shifts where we should actually focus our energy. Instead of waiting for the world to become kinder, we're being invited to pay attention differently. When someone holds a door, listens without checking their phone, or remembers how you take your coffee—these aren't small gestures. They're evidence of a kindness that's already flowing all around us. We just walk past it constantly, too distracted or cynical to notice. And worse, we sometimes actively choose the thorns: we interpret innocent comments as slights, assume the worst about people's motives, or fixate on the one rude thing someone said while forgetting the dozen kind things they've done. The real work isn't summoning kindness from nowhere. It's training ourselves to see it when it's already there. That's harder than it sounds, but it's also more hopeful. The flowers are already blooming. We just need to open our eyes.