What does kindness mean to you? This is a question I have been pondering lately, and long before I realised today, November 13th 2018, is UK Kindness day.I know there are now days for everything and mostly I don’t take a huge amount of notice of them. However a day which is a celebration of kindness in society and day to day life, and encourages individual acts of kindness, seems important to acknowledge.
A little bit of kindness goes a long way, or so the saying goes. I think this is true, not only can it go a long way, a little bit of kindness can change a persons whole day.
As a palliative care nurse I work in a world where kindness is, or should be integral to eveything I and my colleagues do, and I firmly believe it is. Every day I see small, and large acts of kindness which often cost the giver little but make a huge difference to the receiver. Every day I am moved by others acts of kindness.
At a time where life feels uncertain and the future can be scary, surely being kind is increasingly important, Kindness requires an action on our part. Kindness comes with huge benefits. We can all relate to that warm glow we get when we feel we have helped someone. Of course, kindness is not just about making us feel good about ourselves, but if it motivates us to be kinder then is that necessarily a bad thing. We need to start somewhere. Being kind not only helps the person receiving the kindness, but it can help those who are being kind too. Kindness is a truly lovely thing.
Being kind involves making an active decision to do something good or nice or generous. Being kind can of course be spontaneous, or it can be big and planned. But usually what it involves is giving something of ourselves, maybe even making some sort of sacrifice. An act of kindness requires thoughtfulness and generosity and sometimes time. It requires us to think about someone else instead of ourselves.
The Dalai Lama said ‘Be Kind whenever possible. It is always possible’.
When I asked some children the question ‘What does kindness mean to you?’, they came up with various answers. One simply said ‘Love’. Absolutely. Another said you must be kind to someone to make them happy. I would agree with that. He also said it was kindness that people gave him sweets (it was the day after halloween which probably had something to do with it)!
I think however the final word should go to Joe age 9, clearly a very kind little boy.
“to me I think it means people respecting others and sometimes going with the choices they make even if they’re not the best but staying with them. To be a good friend and enjoying the friendship we already have. When people are kind to one another it makes me feel warm and happy”.
Whatever you are doing today may it be filled with times of kindness.
Sometimes 9-year-olds know best 🙂 Good for Joe, that brought a lump to my throat.
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Thanks Vicky. You are absolutely right.
Obviously tears here! Thanks Angie xx
A tear here – unsurprisingly! Lovely words as ever, Angie xx