_{Image from : Flickr}

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Introduction

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I have never seen anything so admirable as gentleness and kindness if applied correctly, recently I was opportuned to be at a meet-up organized by noble people, which I will like to mention their names, but sorry, I won’t, because I have not sought their attention as regards to that.

During the meet-up, while the program was going on, I wanted to ease myself, being a shy type, I did not have an alternative than to take an excuse, on getting out, I could not find my slippers, I first thought someone had used it and dropped it somewhere. I waited for good two days before I could set my eyes on it again, that moment, I saw one of the attendees holding it while trying to keep it somewhere. Hmm, do not be surprised! The person is just suffering from Kleptomania, because, am very sure he can afford to buy not only one but thousands.

I approached him and I told him that the slippers he was holding resembles mine, he exclaimed like a stutterer, that the slippers were his and that I should look for mine. I paused for a while and gently walked away from him to my position, he was watching me while I was walking away till I got to my position, twenty-thirty minutes later, he came back to me with my slippers and sought my forgiveness for stealing my slippers and that he was also looking for his own which resembles mine. Through kindness and gentleness, I was not only able to recover my slippers but also change his orientation and later had a nice interaction with the fellow colleague.

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Diving into subject matter

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Kindness has been referred to as interpersonal skill which encompasses many qualities such as affection, warmth, gentleness, concern, friendly, caring, generous, and an act of being considerate while Gentleness effects the way will interact, communicate with people which reflect caring, consideration and less harsh.

Many times, we try to correct people’s mistake by using a wrong methodology and as such people turn down our good and sincere efforts without listening, let alone making any positive impact in their lives, even when we have the means to do so.

Our inability to express or communicate to others with kindness and gentleness always resolves to unnecessary disputes.

No doubt, in this jungle we called life, we rely much more on one and others and communication either through physical contact or social media are integral part of our lives, no doubt, how effective and healthy our communication is: determines the number of connection and successful one becomes. Taking steemit as a case study, the quality of the followers you have is directly proportional to how successful you become on the platform. In all honesty, it takes many things couples with kindness and gentleness to have quality followers who keep in touch always.

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Many people are happy to see their number of followers being increased, but fail to find out the number of genuine followers who have stopped visiting their blog, not because they do not post quality articles, but just because of the way they have interacted with their followers in the past. Some people are so harsh in nature to the extent that it always reflect in their comments, rather than appreciating a post, they start their comment with a destructive criticism, even if the benefits of the post outweigh the flaws in such posts.

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_{Image from : Pixabay}

I have never been a supporter of plagiarism and I will not be one, not because no one likes to be associated with it, but because I believe in originality. However, let's imagine a writer who composed a good article of almost about 1500 words with just a sentence related to another sentence from different article or blog.

To start by accusing the fellow of plagiarism might be unfair and yields no positive results, rather appreciating the post first and then call the user's attention to such a sentence. Correct application of kindness and gentleness have a long way to go in the lives of both the users and the commentators, but most times we ignore this ethic by focusing on who to label or attach with the word 'plagiarizer' as if we are to police one and others.

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Through Gentleness and Kindness, one can turn destructive criticism to advantage and change people's orientation from bad to good habit. However, constructive criticism is healthy and should be appreciated always.

The followings have been recommended to be applied as a counter measures against destructive criticism which sabotages one's sense of worth.

1. Sort the constructive from the destructive.
2. Be mindful, and notice when an insult is happening.
3. Consider the source.
4. Listen and ask questions
5. Define the criticism's relevance.
6. Thank them.
7. Accept it.

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Conclusion

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Gentleness and Kindness are often used interchangeably, however, gentleness is one of the attributes of kindness and easy to reflect in the happy mood but very difficult to reflect, especially when being hurt.

By re-introducing the quality of gentleness to our body, we can begin to be aware of where we have become hard and rough with ourselves, with others and vice versa. source

As we develop and understand what gentleness feels like, anything that is not gentle really stands out. This enables us to easily see and feel what is loving and gentle and what is not. From there we have the ability to say no to what disrupts or contradicts the feeling of gentleness we know and live in our body. source

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Thanks for being gentle while reading through, your kindness thoughts are important.

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References
<sub>1. The Importance of Kindness
2. Why is gentleness important?
3. What is stealing?
4. The Power of Gentleness
5. A culture of gentleness is also about being able to be vulnerable
6. How to Respond Gracefully to Destructive Criticism
7.7 Ways to Turn Destructive Criticism to Your Advantage</sub>

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_{All images are from free source websites (pixabay, flickr and wikimedia)}

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_{If you write STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) related posts, consider joining #steemSTEM on discord here. If you are from Nigeria, you may want to include the #stemng tag in your post. You can visit this blog by @stemng for more details. You can also check this blog post by @steemstem here and this guideline here for help on how to be a member of @steemstem. Please also check this blog post from @steemstem on the proper use of images devoid of copyright issues here.}