WORLD KINDNESS DAY – Transcript
📍 📍 Today, we’re celebrating World Kindness Day, dedicated to sharing a little extra love and connection with everyone around us. If you’re wondering what that means, well, it’s pretty simple. We’ll just set aside some of our busyness for a few minutes of the day to make room for kindness in our lives. One small act at a time.
The Gremlins
Kindness may feel like a no-brainer for many of you, but if you’re like me, I sometimes have gremlins that pop into my thoughts and whisper things like, I don’t have time or Yeah, I see that person needs help, but money is tight for all of us. Sorry, dude, wish I could help.
So I get it, life can make us feel like kindness is a little extra that I don’t always have the opportunity to indulge.
Get Rich Quick! World Kindness Day – Your Ticket to the Good Life!
Here’s some interesting news. When I apply kindness, I actually get more back than I gave. Now let me prove it to you. Studies show that even small acts of kindness flood us with happy chemicals like oxytocin.which is the love hormone. Or serotonin for mood stabilizers. And endorphins for those aha feelings. Kindness literally helps us feel good. It’s like the best two-for-one deal. Help someone else feel happier, and watch your mood lift, too. Now I won’t deny it, old beliefs die hard. And we might get those pesky yo yo thoughts.
And, they tell us that we can’t afford the time, the energy, or the resources to be kind. Here’s a few things I’ve tried. I throw them out as suggestions. Number one, uh, you’re not being asked to be Mother Teresa. You can start really tiny. We don’t have to be heroes to make a difference. It could just be a warm smile or say a sincere thank you to the barista.
Let someone cut in front of you in traffic without any hand gestures or maybe send a quick, Hey, I’m thinking about you, message to a friend. Tiny acts like these don’t cost much, but they add up. You might even like yourself better for it. In all my work with people, I’m amazed at how many of us really don’t like the person that we’ve become.
I Got No Time To Be Kind!
Now, you might have to reframe your thinking a bit to put kindness in the mix. When your voice in your head says, I don’t have time, why not try answering it with, do I have 30 seconds? You’d be amazed at what even a short moment of kindness can do.
How much effort does it take to hold the door open or stop and pick up an item the person ahead of you unknowingly dropped? It’s nothing, right? And yet it feels so good when you do it. You might feel like you are more than just a robot going about in the daily details of your life. I should probably offer a caveat here. The other person’s response is actually none of our business. . You’re not being kind so that they’ll be kind back to you.
This is our exercise, your exercise, and my exercise in mindset growth and behavior. How the other person behaves is a reflection of their mindset. But look at it this way, the action will benefit you more than them in the long run. So, don’t judge the event by their gratitude or their lack of it. I recommend we try making this a habit.
We could try adding one small act of kindness to our daily routine. Imagine the ripples we’d create if everyone did just one thing every day. to make someone’s day brighter. Maybe it’s a thank you message, maybe it’s picking up an extra coffee for a co worker, or a random compliment to a stranger. You know what, you guys?
We Could Start a Revolution!
We could actually start a revolution. They might even name a day, World Kindness Day. So, let’s think of kindness as a win win situation. We refill our cups when we share a bit with someone else. You can call it the helper’s high. . It’s a natural pick me up without the caffeine rush that crashes mid afternoon.
So today I set out a challenge for me and I invite you to join me to embrace kindness, Even when it’s inconvenient, or when it feels like a stretch. The great and late poet Maya Angelou said, People will forget what you said or what you did, but never how you made them feel. So let’s roll up our sleeves and make a point of it.
Don’t wait to feel like being kind. Just be kind. Invest the seconds and the effort. We are a lot more than our politics or our pocketbooks. We are the light of the world. Giddy up!
