It is kind to pitch in when someone needs a little help with something that you are good at. Stop and take the time to help someone in a kind way. What I mean by “a kind way” is not lording over those people that you are helping with an attitude that makes sure they know just how good you are at the skill. Instead, put the other person—the person you are helping—first, with an intentionality and focus on what will actually help them to grow in their own skills. And, I don’t at all mean a “doing it for them,” as if the other person was incompetent and incapable of learning to do it themselves.  You will not get a healthy response when you are making them dependent on you, their helper. No one likes either of those two bad methods, the lording-it-over method or the co-dependency method of non-help help. Neither of those ways are really helping anyone.

To really help someone is kind and it involves humility and patience. Humility, because the focus is not on you, and patience, for the same reason: meeting someone’s need in a kind way is to progress forward the self-worth and self-confidence of the person you are helping, so that they can thrive in the skill themselves and someday even help others with the help that you have given by enabling and nurturing a new talent. Doing it this way takes time and engagement.

Try it and see how helping others the kind way bears good fruit. Such fruit will continue to grow and bring forth more fruit in others. It’s sort of like a kindness vine.