Right, so picture this. I’m stood in the Tesco Express on Mare Street last Tuesday, just after a proper long day of telling half my team to stop scrolling TikTok under the desks, and this bloke in front of me drops his entire bag of shopping. Tins everywhere, one of them rolls right under the frozen peas cabinet. Most people would sigh, step over it, mutter something under their breath about clumsy sods. Me? I crouched down, handed him the beans and the weird oat milk he was clearly regretting buying, and we both ended up laughing because the oat milk had split and it looked like someone had milked a ghost. He said cheers, I said no bother, and that was that. Tiny moment. Cost me thirty seconds. Yet I walked out feeling lighter than I had all week. That’s the thing I keep coming back to. Kindness is the quiet rebel in a world that keeps handing out trophies for being the sharpest knife in the drawer.
I work in a bank, yeah? East London branch, big open-plan nightmare where everyone’s pretending they’re one coffee away from a breakdown. My lot are mostly under twenty-five, full of energy and opinions and the sort of confidence that only comes from never having had to pay a proper gas bill. The girls can be a bit much sometimes, all perfect nails and side-eye, the lads think they’re subtle when they’re definitely not. I’ve got this reputation for being the stern one. Fair enough. Someone has to keep the numbers tidy and the deadlines from flying out the window. But outside those glass doors I’m soft as anything. Always have been. Basildon raised me that way. You look after your own, you don’t make a song and dance about it, and if someone’s having a rough day you just quietly put the kettle on.
People these days act like kindness is a weakness. Like if you’re not constantly grinding or calling people out or posting your charity work with a filter, you’re somehow falling behind. I find that properly mental. Real strength isn’t the loudest voice in the meeting. It’s the person who notices when a colleague’s gone quiet for three days and slides a packet of biscuits onto their desk without asking what’s wrong. I’ve done that more times than I can count. No big speech. No “I’m here if you need to talk” performance. Just biscuits. Sometimes silence is the kindest thing you can offer. My nan used to say that. She could sit for an hour with someone and only speak if it actually helped. I’ve tried to keep that.
Sunday roast back home every other week keeps me grounded. Mum still does the gravy the old way, Dad still moans about the football, and my brother still steals the best bit of Yorkshire pudding. We don’t do deep chats unless someone really needs it. Last month my mate from school turned up looking like she’d been crying in the car. Nobody interrogated her. We just made space at the table, passed the roast potatoes, and let her sit there until she was ready to laugh at Dad’s terrible jokes again. That’s kindness without the spotlight. No Instagram story required. Just the knowledge that someone’s got your back even when you’re a mess.
I watch a lot of trash reality TV with my girls. Full running commentary, obviously. We’ll sit there in our onesies, vapes occasionally out, dissecting every fake friendship and dramatic exit. The bit that always gets me is how quickly people turn on each other for the cameras. One minute best mates, next minute throwing shade because the producers dangled a bit of drama. I can’t stand performative anything. Give me the mate who texts a voice note at eleven at night just to say she saw a dog that looked like yours, rather than the one who only messages when she needs a favour. My circle is tiny on purpose. Once you’re in, you’re stuck with me. Loyalty like that doesn’t need announcing. It just shows up.
There’s this idea floating about that the world is getting harder, that you have to armour up or get left behind. Maybe. But I’ve noticed the people who lean into the sharp edges end up lonely. They win the argument and lose the room. I keep choosing the softer route because it actually works. At work I can be strict about targets and still leave a quiet “well done” sticky note on someone’s monitor when they’ve pulled a late one. Outside work I’ll hold a door, let someone go first in the queue if they’re struggling with a pram, smile at the barista even when the coffee takes forever. None of it’s grand. None of it goes on a CV. Yet those little choices stack up. They make the day feel less like a battle and more like something you can actually enjoy.
I used to think I had to hide the soft side completely. Bank life rewards the ones who look unbreakable. For a while I tried matching the energy, being that competitive girl who never blinked. Exhausting. These days I let the façade do its job from nine to five and then drop it the second I’m on the Overground home. Trackies on, hair up, barefoot if I can get away with it. That’s when the real me comes out. The one who still believes people are mostly decent underneath all the noise. The one who dreams about a proper partnership where kindness goes both ways, tall dark handsome optional but definitely preferred. Until then I practise on strangers and friends and the occasional lost tourist asking for directions to Shoreditch.
Sarcasm helps, obviously. You can’t survive Essex or East London without a bit of dry humour. When someone cuts me up in traffic I’ll mutter something unprintable, then immediately feel guilty and hope their day improves. When a colleague tries to take credit for work I did, I’ll smile sweetly and make sure the actual numbers tell the truth later. No scene. No drama. Just quiet correction. Kindness doesn’t mean being a doormat. It means refusing to add extra sharp edges to a world that’s already got enough.
I think about the older generation a lot. My nan’s mates still check on each other every week even though half of them can barely hear the phone. They don’t call it mental health support or community outreach. They just do it. Pop round with a cake, sit in the garden, talk about nothing important. We’ve complicated everything. Now kindness needs a hashtag or a corporate workshop before anyone believes it’s real. Off the wall thought, but maybe we should all be a bit more like them. Less performance, more actual showing up.
Money matters to me, don’t get me wrong. I count every penny and I want my team to hit their numbers because stability feels good. But I’ve never seen a spreadsheet hug anyone. The nights that stick with me aren’t the ones where we smashed a target. They’re the ones where a mate turned up unannounced with chips and we sat on the sofa watching some ridiculous dating show until the early hours. Or the random bloke in Tesco who looked so relieved when a stranger helped pick up his shopping. Tiny. Ordinary. Perfect.
Some days I wonder if I’m the odd one out. Everyone else seems to be optimising their lives for maximum edge. Gym selfies, hustle quotes, public call-outs. Meanwhile I’m over here getting properly chuffed because the woman at the bus stop smiled back when I said morning. Maybe that’s the point. Softness is the rebellion now. Choosing not to harden yourself is the bravest thing left.
I still get it wrong sometimes. Hold a grudge longer than I should. Take an extra hour at work when I promised myself I’d leave on time. Forget to text back because I prefer actual conversations. But the intention stays the same. Keep the edges for the times they actually protect something important. The rest of the time, offer the shoulder. Offer the silence. Offer the biscuits. Offer the laugh when someone’s oat milk goes everywhere.
The world can keep handing out prizes for being sharp. I’ll stay over here collecting the quiet moments instead. They last longer. They feel better. And if that makes me sound idealistic or soft or a bit off the wall, good. Someone’s got to keep the balance. Might as well be the girl from Basildon who still believes a small kindness can change the whole temperature of a day.
