You've hit on the cure, Umair. Yes, it's kindness. Just being kind to everybody. Buddhists call it "living skillfully" because the first person to benefit from an unbreakable policy of kindness to everyone, is yourself, in many many ways. Somebody has to start it but then it forms a chain reaction.
About ten years ago I joined a Street Pastors group for my town: the town had a lot of nightclubs and late bars at the time and a very serious binge-drinking problem. We would go out at around 10 pm on Friday and Saturday nights and wander around the streets with nightclubs in them until 2 am. There were always about 6 of us, wearing hi-viz vests and carrying flip flops, space blankets and lollipops. When we met drunken girls walking around barefoot in glass-strewn streets because their ridiculously high heels were hurting their feet, we'd give them a pair of ugly pink flip flops. When we came upon kids who had passed out on the pavement, we'd put them in the recovery position, cover them with a space blanket and stay with them until they could tell us where they lived and we could get a taxi for them, or possibly an ambulance. We handed out lollipops to nearly everyone we met. Yes, it was an ecumenical church-based group but any preaching was strictly forbidden. Fights often broke out, especially outside the biggest nightclub, because there are some young men for whom an evening isn't fun without a fight at the end of it. We left those to the police.
On one occasion we were outside this biggest nightclub and there was already a fight going on on the other side of the road. I spotted a bunch of lads near us who were shouting at each other and I could see from the body language that they were on the edge of swinging punches - which I really didn't want because then we'd have been stuck between two fights.
So I grabbed a handful of lollipops and bounced into the middle of the group of threat-displaying primates saying, "Anyone want a lollipop? Who wants a lollipop? Here, have one of these...."
It was magical. They stopped shouting, politely said "Ooh thanks very much" and the whole group broke up into guys shaking hands and saying goodbye.
Kindness is magic.
