World Kindness Day: November 13th

When you receive a kindness, remember it;
when you do a kindness, forget it.

-Greek proverb-

In our competitive and all too often violent world, kindness is not the most frequent response.  Today, November 13th,  is the date that was decreed for World Kindness Day in 1997 when a Japanese group called the Small Kindness Movement organized a conference that brought together members of kindness organizations from around the world.  World Kindness Day encourages us to be kind to others, helping to create a nicer, better world. The result was the World Kindness Movement. Its goal is simple...create a kinder world.

How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it!

-George Elliston-

Kindness reaffirms our connection with each other.  When someone is kind to us, we feel blessed.  And being kind to another doesn't take much effort on our part....a friendly smile, a kind word, takes less than a minute and gives so much joy.   Many people here in the city are so locked into their own little worlds that they have no time for kindness. I can't count how many times I have been lost and gone up to someone to ask directions, only to have them ignore me as if I am invisible and walk right past. No matter what, I always stop to respond...even if it is just to say 'I am sorry,  I don't know how to get there.'  Or, how many just brush on past the pleasant young man trying to make a living by handing out New York's free newspapers at the subway station?   How much does it take to say 'No, thank you' rather than just scowl at him? Or taking that extra minute to hold the door for the next person rather than letting it slam in their face.

Use today as an opportunity to be kind to family, friends, neighbors, and others. You will find kindness rubs off on others, and generates even more kindness. 

We restore the holiness of the world through our loving-kindness and compassion.  Everyone participates. It is a collective task. Every act of loving-kindness, no matter how great or small, repairs the world.  All those ever born have shared this collective work since the beginning of time. --Rachel Naomi Remen