World Kindness Day: There is a thin line between being self-love and selfish; say celebrities

It all starts within, say celebrities this World Kindness Day. We are often very kind to others, but when it comes to ourselves, we turn harsh. Celebrities share with JYOTHI VENKATESH instances of when they were harsh with themselves and how they take care of their needs now.

Pranitaa Pandit:
I learnt it the hard way but I did realise that kindness starts from within. If you want to be kind to the world, you have to be kind to yourself and love yourself enough. Otherwise, it’s truly meaningless. It’s easier said than done but sometimes we try to love the other person more than we love ourselves. The industry has taught me a lot. The kind of rejection we face, the kinds of comments we get, and the kind of criticism we see around us is immense. On many occasions especially when you’re not doing well, that is the time you realize that you have to stand up for yourself and be nice to yourself even if you’re feeling rejected, criticized. The industry has the best of both, in terms of kindness. Like there are people who show kindness to immense levels when needed but it is also a place where people are not kind to you. People are blunt and competitive. Our work is such that we are supposed to be extremely honest. Sometimes honesty at the cost of hurting somebody is not the best way. People just go out there and make statements and say things to you, about you without realizing the impact it will have on your mental health. And I think it’s not only applicable to the industry but to the world.

Ankur Nayyar

I have big dreams and high expectations from myself, whether it’s achieving your spiritual goals, physical goals or mental goals, emotional or financial goals. Would that mean I am being kind to myself or harsh to myself. I don’t know. For me, kindness would be being complacent with what I have and yes I do enjoy the moment. I like to pamper myself and take care of my diet and that is the kindness that I show to myself. Working on uplifting yourself in all the phases is kindness for me. When I am on a holiday, I let go of everything and enjoy it to the fullest. When it comes to people, I am kind to them. I don’t like to speak to anybody in a tone that is not appropriate for me to listen to. I am polite and respectful to everyone no matter what stature of society they come from. The units where I have shot people have respect for me. There is a very thin line between being kind to yourself and harsh to yourself. If I am not being harsh to anyone, I do not accept anybody to be harsh with me.

Ishaan Singh Manhas

During the lockdowns, just like everyone else, I was at home all the time. We were unable to go to gyms and I am not much of a ‘home-workout’ person. Since I am a big foodie and have a weakness for sweets, I overindulged so much during that period. Then one day I went for my yearly routine blood tests, and to my shock and surprise, few of my readings were above the normal range. This stressed me out and made me realise that I should be kind to my body and not punish it for such temporary pleasures. And since that day I have completely changed my food habits and at the same time have been regular with my workouts. That’s why we must get our blood tests done once or twice a year to know if everything is fine in our body. Talking about kindness in the entertainment industry, I would say that it all depends on the individual. Whether it’s the entertainment industry or corporates or politics or sports or any other profession, kindness is a quality that differs from person to person.

Mitaali Nag

Wow, this question actually made me think hard about an instance, which prompted me to be kind to myself. It shouldn’t be so difficult. I realized that I never really thought about it before. kindness to self should be of top priority. But I feel most of the time we forget that. Honestly, I can’t think of a particular moment that prompted me to be kind to myself. Some form of self-kindness is also mistaken as being selfish by people. But there is a difference between being selfish and being “self kind”. For the longest time of my life, I had been a person who would sacrifice my choices and comfort over the people whom I love and care about. But I realized that sacrifice can become self-sabotaging. I started choosing my happiness, I started giving credit to myself for things I deserved, and I started pampering myself in ways I would pamper people whom I care about. I started being kind to myself. As far as people from my industry, I feel it is always a mix. I have seen the kindest people around and I have also come across some of them who for reasons best known to them are far from kind, especially to others.

Saanand Verma
Kindness is very important for humanity. Actually, I feel that humanity is synonymous with kindness and we all should be very kind to each other, and to animals, in the world. I came to Mumbai and there was a friend in Delhi whose father knew a person in Mumbai and that person helped me so much financially. He got me a rented house, paid the deposit and I will be indebted to him for the rest of my life. He did it without any kind of selfish reason. So doing things for others, taking care of others without any selfish reason, selflessly you should be taking care of others, that’s kindness. I think we all should be kind, and polite to ourselves as an attitude. It should be our habit. I just want to grow as a kinder person with each passing day of my life. I think in the entertainment industry, we have all kinds of people but definitely we have very good humans who are really kind in our industry because our industry is basically very emotional. We do emotional business and we play around with emotions. There’s always room for improvement in our industry.

Namita Lal

I have worked on this for a long time ever since I started going down a bit of a spiritual journey in areas of exploring silence and loving myself. I also learnt to be kind to myself which is I think one of the most important aspects of being human and one of the things which we have lost as a humanity. We have started judging everybody and judging ourselves. I don’t judge anybody and I don’t judge myself. I’m kind to myself and I live 80% of a good healthy life and 20% I live an unhealthy life. I forgive myself for mistakes that I have made and I’m constantly working on myself to be better than yesterday. But there are always areas where sometimes you step back, look at yourself and say, okay here’s where I’m judging myself, not being kind to myself. I try to understand that and work on it. So that’s kindness to myself.