It was 2010, I had just joined Cadena SER as an intern and I was as lost as a budding adult launched into the world of work. I had been selected for a scholarship under the “Let’s Live Two Days” program, and the journalist Sara Vítores was working there, always frantic, optimistic and enthusiastic. Sara proposed topics and approaches that went beyond the monotony of information, without ever losing an iota of rigor. One afternoon he sat next to me in the newsroom. I didn’t ask him for help, but he offered it to me. And for more than half an hour he explained to me how to make a good radio report, how to assemble the cuts (these are called audio fragments), how to maintain the rhythm of attention, how alternate text and sound in a natural way. way, how to shorten the sentences so that it doesn’t sound like an unbearable homily. It was a free master’s degree that he gave me for no reason other than generosity. Last week Sara Vítores died of cancer and this conversation that was so valuable to me in my career came back to mind.
Perhaps the most common obstacle to displaying our kindness is lack of time, or rather the assumption that we don’t have time. We go through life with such urgency that we barely pay attention to ourselves, how to pay attention to the needs of others. Sometimes we are also inhibited by fear of how our actions may be perceived. This happens to me, for example, when I offer help to an elderly person. It stops me that he thinks I’m condescending to him. And in extreme cases, there are those who directly reject kindness as an emotion. It appears to them as a symptom of weakness, an empty and childish concept, a hypocrisy, the weak sister of compassion, a feeling of distrust, a simple and pure “benefactor”.
