You Get to Practice Kindness Daily

Like many things in life, this is a choice.

kindness All too often, I encounter stories about the terrible things certain people are doing to other people. They are mean, selfish, unkind, inhumane, and often rather astounding. It makes me wonder when it became acceptable to be rude, discourteous, and otherwise inconsiderate?

The when doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that I know that I am capable of acting in a way to turn this unfortunate reality around. All it takes is for me to practice kindness.

Kindness doesn’t take much effort

When all is said and done, kindness takes very little effort. The smallest things are acts of kindness that may seem insignificant, but can still have a huge impact.

What counts as small acts of kindness? Here are a few examples:

Holding a door open for someone
Saying please
Letting another driver get in front of you
Saying thank you
Tipping generously
Saying hello or simply acknowledging a person as they walk past you
Helping someone pick-up wind-blown paperwork and the like

These are but a few examples. None of these cost you anything, and all of them are pure, unadulterated nuggets of positivity.

How do they feel when you are the recipient of them? I can’t speak for you or anyone else, but they always make me feel good.

That’s pretty much the main point of positivity. Feeling good. I don’t know about you, but I am a fan of feeling good. I think it beats feeling bad or otherwise negative.

Being kind is infectious

When you practice random acts of kindness they tend to spread. For example, I tend to engage cashiers in conversation. It may be a compliment about a tattoo, asking how their day is going, joking about the unpleasant person that may have gone before me. The goal? Make them smile.

kindness Why? Because why not? Sure, lots of people seek to not be engaged in this world. That’s a choice. But if you work a job where you are constantly engaging with people, and it’s a total crapshoot as to whether you will get treated well or poorly, I think treating someone well is good.

I’ve done that job. I have been a retail employee, a customer service call-center employee, and a tech-support call-center employee. The levels of dismay, anger, and negativity people toss at such people, who frequently are nothing more than the messengers of their higher-ups, can be verging on the surreal.

This is why kindness is a choice. Every single day you are put in situations where you get to choose how you will interact with other people. Even the most introverted tend to have experiences where they will interact with others.

Choosing to be kind can be a two-way street. How? Because when you are feeling negative, rather than taking it out on that cashier, waitstaff, or customer service employee, venting at that unwitting person may make you feel worse. If, however, you pause, take a deep breath, and treat them kindly it can also be calming for you.

Like attracts like. Consciousness creates reality. Give kindness to get kindness. Like many things in life, you have a choice here. When you practice kindness every day it builds up positivity. I don’t know about you, but I’d far prefer a surplus of positivity over negativity.

Finding positivity is not hard, but practicing kindness is a fairly easy action

Knowing that you can share kindness easily and frequently every single day, you have the opportunity to use it to build positivity and goodwill. When you give kindness, you tend to receive kindness, which feels good both in the giving and receiving – and that ultimately empowers you. When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that tends to spread to other people around you.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more things to feel positivity and gratitude for.

Gratitude leads to happiness. Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude. An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of positivity that begets even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the two-hundred and ninety-second entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

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You Get to Practice Kindness Daily