As I walked through Penn Station yesterday, I was reminded of the scene I witnessed a couple of years ago, where a police officer was high-fiving a little girl whose mother looked distracted. It was such a kind moment. Later I saw the same officer and showed her the picture, to which she explained with tears in her eyes, that the mom was a known prostitute and her heart went out to “her baby”. Whether her actions touched the little girl, I can’t say. But it touched me.
I didn’t have to walk much further to have today’s reality hit me: our society is losing its focus on kindness.
A couple days ago I saw a Facebook post of 20 kind moments. I just had to repost them! As I guessed, they were in turn loved by others and reposted again. We are craving this!
Rather than wait for someone else to post something, I decided that I would start it: 30 days of kindness – post one example of kindness every day. Can you imagine it? It could be the start of a very good thing.
And here is something else I discovered: When you are looking around for examples of kindness, sometimes you have to be the one doing it. On my commute home, as I was looking around for examples, I was getting discouraged. It hit me that if I made this commitment, maybe I’m going to have to be the one being kind. It didn’t take more than a few moments before I noticed several non-native English-speaking travelers who were obviously confused about the trains. I approached them and asked if I could help. Instantly you could sense their relief. And, as expected, it was a great experience for me.
So, let’s start! Here is my day 1 post. I’ll be sharing this daily on my @thesuperbwoman_book Instagram account and periodically on my @janetmneal Instagram account -please follow me on both!
Making the world better – one kindness at a time.