Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. ~ Lao Tzu

I’ve written about kindness a lot over the years on this blog:

Happiness, Gratitude and Small Acts of Kindness

Quotes about Happiness, Gratitude and Kindness

Random Acts of Kindness & Happiness

Happiness is Thanksgiving, Gratitude and Kindness

Happiness Resources: Positivity, Gratitude and Kindness

They’re are Angels Among Us: A True Story of Kindness

That kindness is important is something I think that all of us can agree on. That at times it’s hard to be kind is something we all deal with in our lives. We’ve all had instances where we’re stressed, tired or distracted where we react in unkind ways. We feel bad at those times and that’s understandable, but what we all have to endeavor to do is not compound the error by letting it stand. It’s important when possible to go back and make it right. This is particularly important with children. Sure, you’re making dinner, someone’s calling on the phone, you have a headache and the munchkins have been bouncing off of the walls for hours. They’re tugging on your shirt to ask the same question they’ve asked a hundreds and you gruffly say something like, “not now!” but with a little too much force. They break down into tears and run off, now you feel awful, we’ve all been there. It’s that moment to take a deep breath, to turn down the burners on the stove, end the phone call and go hug your kid and tell them you love them. I was thinking about this because this week my young niece went to her first school dance.

When she came home I called her and we talked about the dance, how much fun she had, whether or not she danced with boys (she didn’t, safe so far), about the blisters on her feet from wearing high heels and dancing. But she also related this story and it pulled on my heart strings and got me thinking about how important kindness is, and how sometimes it’s really hard to find.

I think we all remember what it was like when we were tweens and teens, the desperate need to be accepted. The crushes we had back then often seemed like the most important thing to have happened in all of human history. As such, when things went well we floated on clouds, when they went wrong we wailed as if the world was ending. Anyone who is a parent of a tween or teen completely gets this and has my unending empathy, it’s a hard job. So, when in those vulnerable years you worked up the immensity of the courage to put yourself out there and ask another to accept you, it felt like a life and death endeavor. When you got rejected, devastating. So one of my niece’s friends worked up the courage to ask a boy to dance, probably the first time she’s ever done something like that, he said no. She broke down and called and asked to be picked up and taken home and got rejected again as her parents couldn’t come at that time. My niece and her friends consoled their friend.

This story broke my heart, we’ve all been there, even as adults we know the feeling of putting ourselves out there and being rejected. We never know who is facing something like in their lives. People are very good at wearing masks in front of others. So be kind, it’s important, never to the point of being unkind to yourself, but when you can, make the effort as it often has more impact than you can imagine. And it will certainly help others have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane