Kind: Of a friendly, generous, or warm-hearted nature, showing sympathy or understanding; charitable, humane; considerate, forbearing; tolerant, generous
Like many you who read my blog, Candace is a mother. She runs a successful business, Best Tools For Schools, and writes our See Mummy Juggle blog. She’s constantly on the go, is always there for her friends, and although she’ll at times deny it, a great parent. She’s cute too, and super tiny. I’d like to hate her but unfortunately she’s also nice and quite giving. I consider myself lucky to call her a friend. Although she did stay at my house once and has politely refused any invite ever since.
*Things that make you go hmmmm….*
Candace also believes in giving back and not only talks the talk, she walks the walk. She volunteers for the United Way, has sorted food at her local food bank, raised money for Kids Help Phone and is currently organizing a diaper drive (click the link to get involved). Last year she was introduced to Rabbi Bulka who started Kindness Week in Ottawa. The premise is simple. Be kind. Be kind in your community, be kind in your work place and be kind in your schools.
A couple of weeks ago, Candace called me. She wanted to see how we could help get the word out about Kindness Week and start a Kindness Movement.
I'm all about any kind of momement that doesn't involve poop and was totally on board but wasn’t sure how to approach it. Then last week I went to the Blissdom Canada Conference. Being surrounded by so many incredible, self-motivated, talented women inspired me to be more actively positive in my life. And I knew as soon as I started writing how I wanted to help Candace.
Today, with your help, we’re going to start a Kindness Movement.
How does it work? Simply be kind. We’d like everyone to do one act of random kindness each day. This isn’t a huge endeavour, you are in control of how you will be kind. Large or small, every act of kindness counts and can change people's lives in the process. Whether you hold the door open for the person behind you, smile at the tired cashier and ask how her day is, then listen when she responds, bake cookies for a neighbour, or donate canned goods a food bank....simply be kind.
You may find incorporating acts of kindness into your life is a bit like learning to exercise. I’ll be the first to admit that many times I have the best of intentions and let them fall to the wayside – I’m busy, I’m having a bad day, I’m so caught up in my own minutia it doesn’t occur to me. When you first begin, doing random acts of kindness may not feel natural and you will need to put thought into the process, but over time it will become an essential part of your life and like exercising, skipping a day makes you feel a little less energetic, a little less inspired, a little less....there.
Because helping other people feels good.
The second part of this is spreading the word. Tell your friends, family, co-workers, and kids and get them involved. Come here and leave a comment telling us what your random act of kindness is each day. And call us on ours. Ask us what we did to be kind each day.
If you’re on twitter, tweet the crap out of your kindness and use the hashtag #BeKind.
So maybe you’re reading this and you have no idea what you can do every day. Here’s the great thing...you could do the same one thing every single day and that would be totally coolio! There’s no failure here, all you need to do is simply be kind.
Think about that for a second.
To be successful at this, once a day you put kindness into the universe.
Then spread the word. Like the Breck commercial from the 70’s, if you tell two friends, then she tells two friends and so on and so on, pretty soon we’ll have a kindness revolution on our hands.
And maybe then we’ll be reading less about bullying and racism, conflicts and road rage, murders and suicides and more about goodness, the kindness that’s within us all.
Isn’t that worth one small act of kindness each day?
Looking for inspiration? Here's a list of Random Acts of Kindness to get you on your way.
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