True Kindness

I appreciate kindness in my life, but am finding more and more that, without truth, kindness loses its charm.  

I recently participated on a graduate student's exam committee when on exam day, the graduate student simply appeared to be having a bad day.  She did not answer questions in the usual specific, articulate, and inspiring way which I had come to expect from her.  Behind closed doors, the conversation among the student's committee members reflected this same sentiment.  While otherwise a strong and intelligent student worthy of a PhD, on this day, the student wasn't quite performing at or beyond the bar.  While the committee decided to issue a pass to the student, I was surprised when on returning to the room, she was greeted with "Congratulations" (accurate and appropriate) and "Great Job" (not so accurate or appropriate).   I agreed with passing her, as there was no point in delaying her degree or punishing her for an ill timed bad day.  But, the effusive bouquet of top-notch compliments that followed the congratulatory remarks seemed out of place and confusing.  What good could possibly come of telling a student she did a great job when neither we nor she believed it?  

As a professor, I spent years receiving annual merit reviews that were replete with favorable remarks about my work and productivity.  The positive far outweighed the negative, yet year after year, I was passed over for promotion.  The net result of more than a decade of this pattern is that I no longer believe what my colleagues tell me about my work, good, bad, or in between.   While academic culture may believe the best thing for me is a hearty dose of sunshine pills doled out on an annual basis without regard to circumstance, I beg for something a little simpler: the truth.   

I welcome hearing the truth about who I am and what I do, when such truth is delivered in a basket of kindness.  When kindness follows in the wake of words which may not be what I hoped for, my defensiveness, anger, frustration may still follow, but will ebb much more quickly, allowing me to move on to tasks of a more serious nature.... figuring out how to fix and improve this problem named Denise that I often become in my journey through this world.

So, whether you like me in the littlest or the biggest of ways or not at all, may I appeal to you to share those ways with words embellished only by true kindness and nothing more?