This is How Kindness Makes Beautiful Relationships Amazing

Dancing Elephants Press Prompt week 28 of 52

Dear Reader,

I am going to share my thoughts with you about kindness. I write from personal experience and the things that I have seen people do. These are my thoughts that I believe could benefit anyone who may not already be familiar with what I will present.

Kindness

First, what is kindness? There are many different answers to this question, and we will look at some of them in this article. Kindness is behavior that provides generosity, consideration, help for others, and assistance or concern without expecting any praise or reward.

Kindness is more than just a word, it involves a choice to act with love, compassion, generosity, and service toward others and yourself.

Kindness is of interest in philosophy, religion, and psychology. The Holy Bible has much to say about kindness. I believe it is included as one of the most important roles we can perform for each other.

A selfless concern for others urges people to be kind to each other, including people we may not know without any specific reason. The purpose is to get others to return their kindness to start a chain reaction of good deeds.

Speakers and Writers That Celebrate Kindness

There are several TEDx talks on the philosophy of kindness, one I enjoyed listening to was Audrey Ledbetter: A Philosophy of Kindness | TED Talk This talk is about the power of kindness and how we should all strive to be more kind.

Audrey Ledbetter is the speaker who shares answers to questions about what it means to be kind, she also breaks down kindness into empathy and vulnerability.

When looking at where the word “kindness” came from we see that it has been around since about 1300. At that time, it meant courtesy, noble deeds, kind deeds, and kind feelings. It has been part of a personality trait and a tradition of human culture.

When looking at mating choice, both men and women value kindness. It ranks right up there with intelligence, physical appearance, attractiveness, and age. To be kind is to be a friend and to be deliberate in doing good actions for others.

Some people believe that kindness improves well-being. It is a weapon that can and often does defeat negativity and defensiveness. If people know that you will come back with kindness when they treat you badly, then I believe the chances of people treating you that way are seen as ineffective.

Most people who would treat someone badly are defeated in their goal of making someone feel inferior when they receive kindness in return. The adage “kill them with kindness” comes to mind here.

The author, Mark Twain believed that kindness was a language that the deaf could hear and the blind could see. Robert Louis Stevenson considered kindness to be the essence of love. In the Holy Bible, the apostle Paul listed kindness as one of the nine fruits of the Spirit.

There have been motion pictures that illustrated the power one person can have over another to make an impact on a chain reaction of kindness. In a video series called “Kindness Boomerang,” we see how real-life experiences with kindness leave a lasting impression.

Parents teach their children kindness through observation. If the parents are kind to each other and their children observe and practice it, then kindness can remain uppermost in the minds of humanity. Kindness — Wikipedia

This topic is a very important one. So much so, that a website The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation | Welcome provides examples of acts of kindness for school, home, and work. This website also provides kindness ideas, quotes, a blog on kindness, stories on kindness, and kindness videos.

All this information is provided for free. Also, through email, they provide a daily dose of kindness, weekly kindness ideas, and a general newsletter for everyone and one for teachers.

Random Acts of Kindness Day

Date November 4, February 17, Frequency Annual

Random Acts of Kindness Day, Author Unknown, No known copyright, Random Acts of Kindness Day — Wikipedia

World Kindness Day

Celebrations every year Began November 13, 1998

Next time 13 November 2023, Frequency Annual

World Kindness Day, Author Unknown, No known copyright, World Kindness Day — Wikipedia

I discovered while reading through the information on the internet that the United Kingdom has a World Kindness Day that they celebrate every 13th day of November. The purpose behind this is a celebration of kindness.

The aim of this day is to increase the value of kindness in society and increase the number of kind acts that take place. This makes kindness a greater part of the lives of those who celebrate and practice doing kind acts.

In 2010 a coalition of like-minded organizations from 18 different nations joined together to make up the World Kindness Movement. You can get information on the movement at The World Kindness Movement — We are Kinder.

The World Kindness Movement was established after the Cool to Be Kind anti-bullying campaign in 2001, the UK Kindness Movement in 2005, and the Good Deeds Organization was established.

The Good Deeds organization was an internet-based social business and social movement organization that was structured around the “pay it forward”: and “good deeds” concept).

These efforts were used to start the Kindness UK organization. Charities, associations, businesses, schools, organizations, institutions, and individuals across the UK celebrate Kindness Day UK.

Sandra Possing co-authored an article titled How to Be Kind. In this article, she has included different parts. One part is on developing a kinder perspective, another is developing kind qualities, and yet another is taking action. Other topics covered are expert questions and answers, tips and warnings, related articles, references, and an article summary.

The article summary says if you want to be a kind person start doing nice things for friends, family, and coworkers even if they have not asked for anything. Smile and show genuine interest in their lives. Be compassionate by listening to problems and concerns and offering support. You can get additional information on this at How to Be Kind (with Pictures) — wikiHow

Random Acts of Kindness

A random act of kindness is not a planned event and is not consistent action. It is designed to offer kindness toward others.

Examples of Random Acts of Kindness

Things that happen on the spur of the moment and are generally not well advertised beforehand nor expected by the recipient. One example I found spoke about a police officer that gave socks and a pair of boots to a bare-footed homeless man.

Another example was a Chicago man who gained a significant following after doing a random act of kindness each day of the year in 2012. He performed 366 acts, and this spun off into State of Kind, a mission to do an act of kindness in all 50 states to raise awareness.

Some examples of random acts of kindness are:

When you buy a new article of clothing donate one of your older articles

When eating at a sit-down restaurant and the server does an outstanding job leave the biggest tip you can afford.

Make a book a small gift to someone that you think they will enjoy.

Volunteer to be a mentor to school children — math, reading, etc.,

Write a nice comment on a blog for someone.

When traveling and staying at a hotel, if you are in the room when it needs to be serviced, let the person doing the servicing know that you appreciate what they are doing for you to have a clean and stocked room.

When you purchase a product and experience a problem with it, then decide to call customer service to deal with it, be nice and understand it is not that person’s fault. 101 Easy Ideas For Random Acts Of Kindness (buzzfeed.com)

Interesting Facts and Statistics

Being kind improves how others see and accept you.

Kindness can lead to a reduction in some diseases.

Being kind can increase your happiness and self-esteem.

Self-regulation and emotional reactivity are positively influenced by kindness.

Negative stress is lowered with kindness.

A happier world begins with kindness. Kindness slows aging, is good for your heart, and improves relationships.

In leadership, kind leaders are empathetic, respect themselves and others, and are fair with both business and personal dealings.

Books on Kindness

Secret Kindness Agents wrote by Ferial Pearson.

This book is about what could happen if you did one small act of compassion for someone.

Why Kindness is Good for You written by David R. Hamilton

Science and real-world examples unite to explain how we are wired to be compassionate.

The leading power of doing good written by Peggy Payne and Allen Luks

This book helps you understand how you can create space in your life to volunteer and why you should.

Character Strengths Interventions: A field guide for practitioners written by Ryan M. Niemic.

Theory meets practical application, learn how to flex your strengths and dial them back when needed.

Character Strengths and Virtues written by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman

The theory behind the selection of 24-character strengths.

The Kindness Cure: How the science of compassion can heal your heart and your world written by Tara Cousineau.

Tells the reader how to reduce fear and indifference, through psychology and neuroscience.

These books and thousands of others on kindness are available through Amazon and I am certain other book retailers.

This is the end of this article, but I am sure you can see the importance of kindness (it really does make the world go around and life worth living). There are many resources that can be used to help grow our kindness quotient. I have provided just a few examples, ideas, etc., in this article but I am certain that you won’t have to look too far to find others.

If you liked this article, please clap for it, mark yourself as a follower of mine, and join me on my journey in writing as I contribute to various publications on medium.com.

The more time people spend reading my articles, the more it encourages me to continue writing. Many thanks for taking the time to read what I have written.

If you are not yet a medium member, please consider membership.

Please join my email list, this allows you to be notified when I post something new. My writing success depends on readers like you who appreciate and support my writing. Thanks so much for taking the time to read and support me.

Annelise Lords. I would like to thank Ms. Annelise Lords for the writing prompt that spurred me to write this article. She is a very talented writer and editor and her prompt can be read at https://readmedium.com/self-love-is-kindness-635ad4f61ff9 and even more of her outstanding writing can be read at [email protected].

I would like to give a big shout-out to Ms. Annelise Lords for her article titled Self Love is Kindness. She shows that we must love ourselves before we can ever love others. I agree and recommend this article to anyone that wants to learn how to live life in kindness.

Shubha Apte. I would like to give a big shout-out to Shubha Apte who wrote the article Experience Liberations Through the Beauty and Joy of Dancing. This article takes us to a far-off land, and we get to experience the spiritual dances of India, Garba and Dandiya Raas. The picture of the beautiful dresses worn by the dancers was a highlight. The article also provided the health benefits of dance. I found the article to be very informative and it provided some very useful information. I recommend reading this article.