The Need For Gentleness

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In the world we live in, there is a lot of aggression and violence. We read about wars, fighting, shootings and various murders. It seems apparent that something is underlying all of these atrocities and it is the acceptance of violence and aggression as a way to deal with life’s problems.

On a smaller scale, if we enter into many work places we might find that a manager or boss is shouting at his employees and he may use some extent of aggression to get them to do what he wants. Some men use aggression against their wives if she does not do what she wants. He may shout, bang things around, threaten to hit her or actually do so.

For this reason it seems that society has quite a bit of acceptance towards aggressive and at times, violent behaviour. People may say they do not, yet most people seem to engage in these behaviours. In fact, aggression does not always imply that someone will necessarily physically harm someone. A person might be aggressive by ignoring someone, talking behind them or trying to ruin their reputation. This is also a type of aggression and it seems that many people get involved in this.

All these types of aggressions cause people to suffer to varying degrees and of course, extreme aggression may cost someone their life.

For this reason, for people who actually want to improve themselves and society and do not want to be a cause of hurt or harm for others there are certain attributes that we can develop to counteract these aggressive tendencies. The first and most important of these qualities is gentleness. In fact, there is a saying that Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is supposed to have said that:

Gentleness does not enter upon a thing except that it beautifies it.

I have also heard from Christian speakers and others, the importance of gentleness and that it is actually part of inner beauty together with certain other traits such as compassion, patience, and so forth. Gentleness is obviously the quality of being gentle, that is, not harming.

A gentle person does not raise their voice to other, in fact, they do not raise themselves over others either. A gentle person wants to understand the side of the other person in conflict. They may resolve the issue due to their understanding and finding a way to deal with the situation that suits all parties. Gentle people will not hit or beat someone because they are angry or because someone did not do what they wanted. Rather, a gentle person will not escalate the issue with violence, rather they will try to get people to understand what they feel and how not obeying them affected them. This is far more effective and long lasting than hitting, since making others aware of how their behaviour may effect us may lead them to change. Hitting someone may lead them to hit us back.

Gentle people do not like wars and fighting, and they may try to negotiate problems before things escalate. In times of war, they will also try to avoid the unnecessary killing of innocents, of using violent and drastic methods to destroy and maim others. Gentle people do not want to harm innocent people – or even cause unnecessary harm to the enemy, so they will try their best to avoid these things.

When there is a lot of oppression and inequalities caused by people who try to put themselves above others, gentle people are likely to be the ones asking for better equalities and human rights. They are more likely to take time to understand the suffering of others. For this reason they might be more likely to advocate for them.

For all of these reasons, it seems that the quality of gentleness is much needed in our current world and we should try our best to develop it.

We can become more gentle by:

1) Thinking before we act. We consider that most situations do not require shouting, throwing things or violence to be resolved

2) Trying to understand the viewpoints of the other side and why they think or behave as they do and try to answer them based on an understanding.

3) Treat people in the way we would like to be treated.

4) Make a promise to ourselves and others that we will deal with all problems in a gentle manner and a promise to never hurt or degrade or harm others.

5) Reading about gentle behaviour and if we can find examples of gentle people to observe them or try and learn from them.

It may take time for people accustomed to getting their way through shouting, violence and intimidation but it is possible to learn and develop gentleness. If we all did so, we would probably not be seeing, hearing or experiencing a lot of these world wide problems that are occurring now.