Health & Fitness
My Kindness (Re) Awakening
Did you have great intentions but have fallen back into your "pre-Kindness Challenge kindness habits?"
Another thought-challenging post from our guest-blogger, Elaine.
The Kindness Challenge 2012 has been up and running for over three weeks now.
Like many people, in December I was wrapped up in the build up before the Jan. 1 start. There were plans and ideas on where and how to touch people with kindness—in our own neighborhood, on a city street and right here in our office. The possibilities were endless.
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Then, Happy New Year! It was Jan. 1—Kindness Challenge 2012. Now things counted. Get out there; do those acts of kindness. Hold those doors, be more patient driving, reach out to someone else and make their day.
The acts logged in at the Kindness Challenge website started slowly adding up and the website map was getting clustered with hits from around the world. It was touching and motivating to read the acts being logged.
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Like many people, I was being drawn by the momentum of the challenge. I was making efforts to do more and do for more people. Whether it was sending greetings to long lost friends, paying for the next person or kind words to a stranger, I too was stretching myself. Then something changed.
Before I realized what was happening, I found myself walking by my blank note cards, reminding me to send more and just as quickly, moving it to my tomorrow’s to-do list. What’s that about?! What happened to the extra effort to do it today? I found myself THINKING about kindness more than DOING extra acts of kindness. I could excuse it away and say that I was being kind to myself—giving myself time, but that’s not it. I fell back into my pre-Kindness Challenge kindness habits.
"I fell back into my pre-Kindness Challenge kindness habits."
You see, by nature, I’m a kind and friendly person. It’s easy for me to chat with strangers and I’m the one who lets the person with arms full of groceries go ahead of me and my grocery cart. What I’ve learned by the Kindness Challenge is that continuing to do kindness as I’m used to doing, when it’s easy for me, is no longer enough. I need to make an extra effort. And do it every day.
The Kindness Challenge is during January 2012, but that's only the beginning. Like me, start doing extra acts of kindness daily. Even just one a day. They say anything you do daily for thirty days becomes habit. Create, or in my case—reawaken—your kindness habit.