The Kindness of Relationship

"I love it that what my heart wants most to do  is to console or appreciate or encourage.  It feels better in relationship.  I imagine it ever on the lookout for an object ― a frightened friend, my own chagrined self, the world around me that it can connect with...  I feel delighted to have been born into what the Buddha called 'this realm of ten thousand joys and ten thousand woes' with mind and heart primed to respond, out of wisdom, and out of natural benevolence, with kindness."
― Sylvia Boorstein

When I reread this passage in Sylvia Boorstein's book Happiness is an Inside Job, I realized that connection is so important because we are wired to live in relationship ― with ourselves, with others and with God.  And we seek balance in those relationships.  I think the balance is about our being our best selves and relating to the other person's best self.  We know when relationships are out of balance; typically it is when one or both of us is not in a good place.  But when we can draw on who we truly are, we open our hearts and freely share kindness.  And in so doing, we encourage and lead the way for others to do the same.