Today is World Kindness Day. At Team Holy Brook, we believe every day should be kindness day, but the official day gives us all chance to focus more closely on what we can do to brighten someone else’s day.
You may already be familiar with the Random Acts of Kindness foundation. This is an international movement of people coming together with the aim of making the world a kinder place. A place where being kind is the norm.
I love this idea.
If you listen to the news or read a news site, there tends to be a focus on the all the horrible, negative things that are happening. But I believe strongly that there is also a lot of kindness in the world today. My favourite quote comes from a poem by the American poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox:
“Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes”
By sharing stories and talking about all the good things that happen, we can create a virtuous circle of kindness. When we hear about others making a positive difference in the world, it inspires us to do the same. I asked around Team Holy Brook to find out what we have been up to recently:
- I helped a teenage boy who had fallen off his bike in the street on the way to school. He was upset rather than badly hurt, but was sitting under the bike on the pavement. I lifted it off him and talked to him for a few minutes until he was calm enough to continue on his way.
- I spent some time chatting to a young girl on Twitter who was having a hard time, she is a mental health student nurse and suffers herself. We messaged back and forth for an hour or so, with me encouraging her to have hope for the future and sharing my own experiences of being in her situation. By the end of our conversation, she said she felt better.
- My children and I took a box of raspberries round to our Muslim neighbours as a way to say hello during one of their festivals. They shared chocolates and we had a good chat as their daughter is starting my children’s school soon – it was a lovely way to feel more connected to others on our street.
- I saw a young woman crying outside the train station. When I asked if there was anything I could do to help, she told me she had left her wallet at home. I bought her train ticket for her so that she could get to work on time.
- I helped a dog walker catch her dog who had slipped off his lead and thought it was a great game to keep running away.
My only objection to the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation is the word ‘random’. I think that what the world needs is more deliberate acts of kindness. If we go about our daily lives with an eye for opportunities to show kindness to everyone we come across – whether that’s a big thing or something smaller such as smiling at strangers in the street – we will multiply the chances we have and the difference we make.
What acts of kindness have you been involved in recently?