Welcome to World Kindness Day 2022!
As you probably know from my previous posts, especially these ones about World Kindness Day 2021 (about kindness to others) and World Kindness Day 2020 (about self-kindness), I am a kindness cheerleader.
I just want people to be kinder to themselves and each other. I want society as a whole to be kinder to its individual members. I want governments to be kinder to their citizens. I just want more kindness in the world.
Like Brooke Jones, VP for the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation says in her blog post, I want us all to Make Kindness The Norm.
(For some reason, I can’t insert a caption under the image below. The image is from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation and here is the image description: A red heart and text reading ‘Believe there is good in the world’ with a weathered wooden background. most of the text is black but some of the letters are white so an alternate message of ‘Be the Good’ can also be read. At the bottom of the image is text reading ‘Random Acts of Kindness Foundation’ )
I know I am not alone in my cheerleading mission and in my belief that kindness matters but I also know that there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world. It’s hard to maintain hope and it’s hard to feel that your small, day-to-day kindnesses matter.
That’s why I was so happy to find this video by John Green a few weeks ago because he does a terrific job of summing up a lot of things that I haven’t been able to express succinctly. He’s not talking about kindness directly, he’s arguing for meaning and against nihilism, but his conclusions apply to kindness, too. I especially like his point about how the big picture may be a challenging one but that we don’t live in the big picture, we live in the day-to-day. And in the day-to-day, all of those little connections (or, one could say, kindnesses 😉 ) matter.
So, even if there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world, it’s still worth it to be kind, to seek kindness, and to encourage kindness. It okay to do it because it helps you feel good, because it helps the people you are kind to feel good, or because it just seems like the right thing to do.
(Hmm, I can’t add a caption to the photo below either but it is another photo from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. This image shows a small child with brown skin and curly hair sitting in a white chair. They’re wearing enormous glasses and smiling big enough that their eyes have closed to make room for their grin. They’re wearing yellow pants, suspenders and a blue shirt that reads ‘I’ve got nothing but love for you.’ The text to their left reads ‘The world is full of kind people…If you can’t find one, be one.)
And since being kind, as the video below suggests, is supposed to help reduce stress and bring you ease, there’s no reason not to keep trying it.
I’ve got lots of links in my previous World Kindness Day posts about how to be kind to yourself and others so I’ll just include two more links here:
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has a downloadable calendar for teachers or for anyone who wants to add more kindness to their days on a regular basis.
And since I don’t know how much time or energy you have today, I’m just going to link to my results from a YouTube search for Kindness Meditation so, if you are inclined to meditate, you can have an easy way to find one to try today.
And, my friends, as always, be kind to yourself about the whole thing – life, the universe, and everything – if you aren’t up to putting kindness out into the world today then turn that kindness inward and give yourself a break. You are doing the best you can with the resources you have. 💚
It is kind of sad that we have to have a “World Kindness Day”; that we can’t be kind to each other as a default position. That being said, I appreciate this post and am glad you re-introduced me to the Vlog Brothers – my daughter introduced them to me back when they were in high school. Now that E is grown up and on their own, I haven’t followed the Green brothers in years.