Kindness

Being kind can be easy.  An act of kindness can be as simple as a friendly wave or a smile.  An easy act that anyone of any age can do.  It can be easy and have long ranging effects that you might never be aware of.

However, being kind isn't always easy.  Let's face it there are times when being kind is just a downright pain in the you know what.  You don't want to wave that person into your flow of the traffic.  You've got places to go and a schedule to keep.  Rather than letting a person merge into your lane (perhaps a person who isn't even using their turn signal as any conscientious person should), you just want to give them the finger.  Or letting you child take his/her time to put on shoes, coat, hat and gloves.  It would be easier to just take over and do it for them.  It would be easier, but it wouldn't be kinder.

Kindness CAN be easy, but it isn't always.  Many times it is just easier to be mean or cruel.  But who benefits from that?  Not the person on the end, and certainly not you.  The easy path might give a momentary good feel.  The not so necessarily easy path of kindness has larger ramifications.  There might not be that immediate release, but later on down the road when you have the time to think on your actions, what do you feel better about?  Being a "jerk" or being kind?  The answer is clear isn't it?

Still to be kind is not easy.  It takes thought and consideration.  In the heat of the moment, it simple to pass that over option of being kind.  But as we've often been told, the easy path is not always the best one.  I know, from personal experience, that's it's so much easier to just lash out rather than take a few moments to calm and collect myself BEFORE speaking or acting.  Experience tells me that the latter is better not just for the situation but also for my well-being.  Yet I still often take the easy path.  It's a hard habit to break.  

But just as we CAN break habits, we can always make new ones.  It takes time and effort.  Again, not easy.  Nevertheless, one worth working on.  Making the conscious effort to be kind is good for us AND good for those around us.  (And who knows how far those ripples of kindness can go out into the world.)

It seems appropriate to end this blog with a quote from a man who's birth we celebrate this  day (at least here in the United States, since I have no idea who is reading this and where you are!), Martin Luther King Jr.  “The time is always right to do the right thing.”

Do the right thing; be kind.