Ruwaida Abela Northen On How Being Kind Can Be Life-Changing
An impromptu bouquet prompts Bazaar Arabia columnist Ruwaida Abela Northen to muse about the importance of kindness
I was on a plane recently, heading into what I knew would be 48 relentless hours of back-to-back meetings. Somewhere in the clouds, my phone buzzed with a message from home; a bouquet of flowers had arrived with a handwritten card. It was from someone I barely knew, a man I had met once. A few months earlier, I had simply forwarded his CV, added a kind word on his behalf, and then forgotten all about it. For me, it was a simple act – I was able to help and so I did. For him? It was a job, a lifeline, a turning point.
The card read, “You were the reason behind a turning point in my life… endlessly thankful and I hope all the happiness in the world finds its way to your heart.” And just like that, at thirty thousand feet, I was reminded that it’s good to be kind.
The irony of kindness is that it’s rarely grand. It’s the thing you don’t remember doing, but someone else never forgets. It doesn’t require wealth or influence, just intention. Yet its return is often greater than any calculated investment. We live in a world that teaches us to value impact in metrics: followers, likes, reach, ROI – but the truest impact is felt.
Kindness is not about gestures done publicly for applause nor packaging empathy into social content to boost engagement. It may look like kindness, but it’s really branding in disguise. True kindness happens when no one is watching, when there’s no KPI nor a story to post. And that’s why it’s so rare and why, when you encounter it, you feel it in your bones.
This month, as the world observes International Day of Tolerance, I find myself asking: is tolerance enough? Tolerance is civil, polite, a way to coexist without conflict. To tolerate is to let someone into the room. To be kind is to offer them a chair, a glass of water, and ask them if they’re okay. Living in Dubai with more than 200 nationalities, tolerance is the scaff olding that keeps everything standing – kindness is what turns that framework into something worth living in.
Kindness also lives in the small, ordinary exchanges of everyday life. At home, we have a maintenance company that services several houses in the area. Often, when they’re working
on a neighbour’s house, they’ll ring our bell, not because we need anything fixed, but simply to ask for a bottle of cold water. Why ours? Because when they’ve worked in our home before, we’ve treated them kindly, and they know they’re welcome.
I have spent two decades in hospitality; an industry built on service yet powered by kindness. The most memorable experiences I’ve witnessed weren’t scripted or listed in brand standards. They were unprompted acts of kindness from the heart by people who chose to do something extra. Kindness feels increasingly rare these days. It doesn’t scale, it doesn’t go viral, and it was never built for the algorithm. Outrage spreads faster, cynicism sells quicker. Kindness is one human choosing to look up from their own orbit to notice someone else.
Which brings me back to that bouquet of flowers. I hadn’t expected it, didn’t ask for it, and certainly didn’t require it. But it made me stop. It made me think about how often we underestimate the weight of a small act like a forwarded CV, a quiet word, a gesture that costs us nothing yet changes the shape of someone else’s life. And his kind words made my day.
Perhaps that’s the heart of it. Tolerance lets us coexist. Kindness dares us to connect. In a world that rewards ruthlessness, speed, and spectacle, the bravest move we can make is often the simplest: to be kind. It’s not always easy to remember when your day is a blur of deadlines and demands. But that’s exactly when it matters most. We need to remind ourselves to choose in that split second, to look around and acknowledge someone else’s humanity. Because in the end, kindness isn’t optional. It’s kind of important.
Lead Image Supplied
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s November 2025 Issue