Kindness matters. It plays a major role in helping ourselves and others stay positive. We have to remember that we all have our our struggles and battles that we fight daily. It is so easy to forget this and put our values and rules on others. That is a losing proposition for sure. With kindness, we seem to break through all those barriers that otherwise would not have been broken and reach people on their soul level.
I remember when I was planning the Arts and Jazz Festival Kindness Challenge. I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of time and money it took to have a kindness booth for three consecutive days. Others around me rallied for support of the work I was attempting to accomplish and the results were simply amazing. During that event, I watched time after time people light up when we would offer kindness. We were not trying to sell them anything, just offering to be kind. Kindness matters.
I did a search on Google yesterday for stories about bullying and it returned 320 (wait for it)….. MILLION pages. I started looking through a few of them and time after time, there were completely horrible outcomes to bullying. I read over and over again where one person that was bullied as a kid would then turn into a bully themselves (Ritchie Incognito of the Miami Dolphins comes to mind quickly). While my book, STINKIN’ THINKIN’ STINKS isn’t a book on bullying, it does offer tools and techniques that will help build self-esteem in our kids today. This site was built to quickly and directly help kids deal with what they are struggling with today. It may not solve world hunger, but it is a tool. Bullying as it sits today is simply unacceptable. We can no longer look the other way when it is happening or about to happen because it is occurring DAILY with 90% of kids in 4th through 8th grades reported as being bullied. Seriously? This is all a symptom of STINKIN’ THINKIN!
The answer to all this madness is kindness. It is impossible to be a bully and be kind at the same time. If you want to change your life and the lives of those around you, practice kindness. It doesn’t take much, just some effort. You can do that, right? I challenge you right now to take the Kindness Challenge and start making a positive difference in the world today.
With Peace, Gratitude, and Kindness,
Bill