Tag Archives: acts of kindness

What’s Holding Us Back?

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“My greatest fear has always been that I would be afraid—afraid physically or mentally or morally—and allow myself to be influenced by fear instead of by my honest convictions.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

DSCN3281In earlier posts, we talked about how both kindness and unkindness are contagious—literally—and how in every encounter, we have a choice of which contagion we want to spread. And we talked about all the benefits of choosing kindness—improved health, professional success, reduced stress, better sleep, more creativity, more satisfying relationships….

It would seem to be a no-brainer: with all this evidence for the rewards of kindness, who but the most depraved or deprived among us would not opt for kindness and civility? Well, it’s not that simple. There are factors that get in the way of our choosing kindness, and others that provoke us to behave unkindly even if we would wish otherwise.

Today, let’s look at the biggest barrier, and we’ll examine some of the others in future posts.

Fear is #1

Among the many factors that prevent us from extending kindness and receiving kindnesses, or that sometimes cause us to behave unkindly, the biggest one is fear. And fear comes in a lot of flavors:

Fear of having our kindness rejected or misunderstood. Have you ever extended a kindness and had it spurned. Perhaps you offered a seat on the bus, or asked someone if you could carry their packages and they responded as if insulted by your insinuation that they needed help. That sort of response makes us wary to try again. We have no control over how another person will respond to our kind gesture. Maybe they aren’t ready to receive, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try. Continue reading →

2023 Reboot

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“No act of kindness is too small. The gift of kindness may start as a small ripple that over time can turn into a tidal wave affecting the lives of many.” ~Kevin Heath 

DSCN3351When I started this blog in January of 2015, it was going to be a one-year deep-dive into kindness. It has resulted in eight years of diligent and then sporadic blogging, mostly about kindness, but sometimes other topics that caught my fancy (jazz, baseball, cats, books, nature, politics….). It also resulted in my 2018 book, A Year of Living Kindly (YOLK), which is now in its 9th printing, with multiple literary awards, and several foreign language editions (that’s the end of the shameless self-promotion, I promise). Another result: gratitude—so much gratitude—for this blogging community and the friends I have made through it, as well as the wonderful people I’ve met through my publisher, book talks, book clubs, and YOLK events.

As we commence 2023, my hope is that enough of us are tired of divisive politics, rampant incivility, and misguided actions driven by fear and prejudice, and we’re ready to transform the world by actively choosing kindness. Realizing that in my first and most prolific year of blogging about kindness, there weren’t many people following this blog, I thought I’d revisit and update some of those early posts. There’s more to say on some topics, and less on others. There are nuances and new ahas.

For those of you who have followed this blog since the earliest days, thank you! I hope you’ll still find new ideas and good reminders. For more recent community members, may you find what you were hoping for when you signed up to follow. I’ll try to keep posts short and to-the-point.

For this first “rebooted” post, let’s revisit one big reason why kindness matters, and why we need to choose it every day: Continue reading →

Willy-Nilly Acts of Kindness

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“My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.” (Maya Angelou)

As Random Acts of Kindness Day approaches, I confess I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the notion of random acts of kindness. Heaven knows we need all the kindness we can get, so I’m not going to quibble or critique any kind deed. But, let’s remember how much power there is in intentional kindness.

Maybe it’s because I am a consummate planner that that the notion of doing anything random goes against my nature. Random, to me, feels so … random.

Merriam-Webster defines random as without definite aim, direction, rule, or method. That sounds rather hit-or-miss to me. It implies an indifference that discounts the importance of kindness, that shrugs its shoulders and says, “Whatever.”

I think if we are going to change the world and make kindness a priority in our interactions, we need to be intentional. Continue reading →

Hindsight 2020: How Will Our Children Remember COVID-19?

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“If you can control your behavior when everything around you is out of control, you can model for your children a valuable lesson in patience and understanding…and snatch an opportunity to shape character.” (Jane Clayson Johnson)

When you were a child or adolescent, were there momentous historical events that altered your life and shaped who you ultimately became?

For me, it was the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and also the war in Vietnam. For my parents, it was the Great Depression and World War II. For other generations, the 9/11 attacks or Hurricane Katrina may have etched permanent impressions.

The noteworthy historical event for today’s children or grandchildren could well be the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ll remember it not just as that year schools closed and we stayed home a lot, but also for the way we as individuals and as a nation responded to adversity.

Will they tell their own children and grandchildren stories of scuffles over toilet paper, of hoarding and profiteering, of finger-pointing at people of different nationalities? Will they recount the politicization of life-saving, common-sense measures? Or will they describe how, even in isolation, people found ways to connect with and support one another? How neighbor checked on neighbor, shared provisions, and made sure that those who were most vulnerable were not overlooked. Continue reading →

Go Out and Make Some Memories

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“Kindness causes us to learn, and to forget, many things” (Anne-Sophie Swetchine)

I’ve always been fascinated by memory. How my husband remembers incidents I don’t recall at all, how I’ll remember something that is completely absent in his memory, and how we may both remember an episode from our shared past, but remember it so differently that we question the other’s sanity.

As I age, I wonder why I still recall embarrassing moments from grade school, but don’t remember why I got up from my desk and walked into the kitchen.

Scientists are always sharing new bits of information about memory. So, of course, I sat up and took notice when I saw a new study showing that we are made happier and healthier by recalling our own acts of kindness.

Researchers from the University of California, Riverside, conducted a three-day experiment in which they randomly assigned undergraduates to one of four tasks: 1) performing acts of kindness; 2) recalling acts of kindness they had performed in the past; 3) both performing and recalling acts of kindness; and 4) neither performing nor recalling acts of kindness.

Their findings revealed that study participants in groups 1, 2, and 3 all reported an increase in their well-being: greater life satisfaction and positive feelings, and a decrease in negative feelings. It didn’t matter whether they performed acts of kindness, recalled acts of kindness, or did both—all experienced the same level of enduring and stable happiness and satisfaction. Continue reading →