No matter how harsh the world is, some people refuse to let it harden their gentle, compassionate hearts. Tonight, I had the privilege of witnessing one of them.

(Found this diary entry and felt the realization might be useful to someone else, so I decided to share it with minor edits while keeping the people involved anonymous.)

This evening, after finishing one of my classes, a friend approached me, asking if we could add a classmate to our group. Earlier that day, the lecturer had asked us to form teams, and we had already agreed to stick together since the beginning of the term. Yet, as soon as class ended, he turned to me, mentioned a name, and insisted that we include this person. I wondered why he decided to take someone who I considered didn't academically perform well in the class to be a groupmate. However, I respect his decision thus I nodded. Of course, I still had the curiosity while saying “Bye and I’ll see you next week” to him when we were almost separated. He was supposed to go to the car park while I was going to the light rail station when he stopped and said:

“Nur, you know he struggles with English, and I don’t think his individual assignment marks are great. This is an opportunity for us to help him improve. I hope you don’t mind,” he explained, almost as if reading my thoughts. “I mean, we can support him while also helping him understand the material better.”

There was a brief silence I can even hear the sound of the wind blowing. The realization hit me. While we weren't necessarily excellent students, we could be a small help to him. After hearing the reason, I don't really mind that.

I didn’t mind to help. What I did mind, however, was something deeper—something about myself. For as long as I can remember, I never saw life as a competition. If I ever competed, it was only against my past self. My grades mattered, of course—especially as a scholarship student with responsibilities to uphold. But I had never gone so far as to intentionally choose a teammate who might lower my performance.

Lately, I had also felt myself getting caught up in the constant race to keep up with the world’s frantic pace, unconsciously becoming a little less considerate. A little less thoughtful. So when my friend said those words, it felt like a hammer striking my head.

I nodded again and replied, “I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Let’s help him as much as we can.” then continued my steps. My brain can’t help but reprocess the conversation with this “government buddy” (how we call each other since we both work for the governments of our respective countries) when I arrived at the station.

Above all else, we are human. And as humans, there is beauty in choosing to be kind—offering genuine support, making space for others, and lifting people up. More than any academic achievement, more than a perfect transcript, kindness is the highest form of performance.

In the hurried competitive world we live in, it's easy to forget to exercise kindness so this moment is a reminder to put a great amount of thought and effort into performing kind gestures. I am glad in the way of practicing kindness that always becomes my annual goal, along the line, I witnessed this piece of example from a friend that is so willing to do kind actions. I am grateful that I am once again reminded to get out of my own little world and start committing on make kindness a priority over any achievement in the world.

The train has arrived so it is enough for today. Let's close the diary with a promise to consciously choose to go the extra mile in practicing kindness. Let’s be someone who makes conscious efforts to be soft-hearted and put kindness as the top value above any worldly accomplishment. Also, please be more compassionate, my little heart. I beg you, please be more more more compassionate.