Have you ever experienced an unexpected act of kindness? It startles you at first, being unexpected, but then you feel all warm and happy inside. It’s the same when you do an act of kindness, especially in secret - when your only reward is that warm and happy feeling.
Often kindness can be misinterpreted as weakness, but this is usually by people who don’t understand the source of kindness. The dictionary lists some of the qualities of being kind as “friendly, warmhearted, tolerant, considerate and courteous.” The opposite would be “suspicious, coldhearted, judgmental, thoughtless and rude.”
So let's think about this...
Friendly
To be friendly, a person must trust their intuition about people, willing to treat strangers as potential friends. After all, every friend was once a stranger! To be suspicious is much simpler. Then all strangers are potential enemies. Even friends are potential enemies, you just have to watch everyone very carefully! You tend to get dizzy, though, watching your back.
Warmhearted
To be warmhearted, a person must be comfortable with their emotions. Everyone has experienced hurt and disappointments, even heart-breaking ones. Warmhearted people have experienced these things too, but they have healed and mended. They choose to stay open to love and freely express love in nurturing ways. A coldhearted person has experienced the hurts, but instead of choosing to heal, they shut down their emotions - nothing in, nothing out - to avoid future pain.
Tolerant
To be tolerant, a person must be willing to know themselves, to shine a light inside and see what’s there. This takes great courage, to be honest with ourselves, to look at the things that aren’t very nice without excuses. It takes compassion for ourselves, and inner strength, to look and to change what we don’t like about ourselves. Being judgmental is turning the light outward, seeing only the shadows in someone else's life, not seeing that this same light of judgment shows up our own flaws with equal harshness.
Considerate & Courteous
People who are considerate and courteous are those who are aware of the people around them. They take thought as to how their actions may affect others. They respect their own boundaries, they hold their center, and from this, they offer the same respect to others. To be thoughtless, to be rude and disrespectful of others, takes no effort, indeed, it takes no thought.
The qualities of kindness comes not from weakness but from an inner strength. A kind person can afford to take the risks of being misunderstood. If they are hurt, they know they can heal. They choose to deal kindly with others, not from fear, but from confidence.
“Practice random acts of kindness...”
Yes, indeed, and not-so-random ones too! Kind acts multiply as they go along, person to person, group to group. And I believe that enough of them might even change the world!
https://steemit.com/ccc/@freedomshift/an-update-v2-1-to-guaranteed-daily-income-and-payout-for-newbies-2-0-in-ccc-and-follow-the-honor-code-the-creed-conditions-and
Kindness, Tolerance, Empathy- and all such positive instincts make life Happy. Coz mathematical or material will go as far as comfort, Happiness is something else. Thanks for this reminder - I do so often need it ( like many of us).
Keep Steemin
Thank you.
Oh believe me, it's a reminder for me too! ;-}
Awesome post ... Kindness is mistaken for weakness allot and most of the times those who view the act of kindness as weakness are people with chips on their shoulders who themselves are afraid to look weak.
Hey thanks!
Some of the kindest, gentlest people I know are people you wouldn't want to tangle with. (Meaning 'you' in the general sense, not you personally!) Seriously, if you met them in a dark alley you'd probably turn around. Scary people and they really could rip your head right off! My grandfather was a DI in the Marines. Sweetest man you could ever meet. But don't piss him off!
They are physically and mentally strong, they just hold back because they know they could really hurt you and they would rather not. The mean people in this world I think are cowards. As you say, afraid to look weak, because inside they know they are.
Some people think of me as stupid when I give my coins away to the street children. There was once we were in a jeepney that has stopped waiting for passengers in a loading area, three dirty children came sticking their hands out to us inside through the window. When I gave few coins, one of my fellow passengers commented that I am condoning their laziness much so their parents'. There is no way that I will condone laziness but that will also not stop me if I want to give.
There is a difference, you see it but that person doesn't.
(And it's not like you're giving their money away, sheesh!)
I wonder how much joy they have in life being closed and suspicious? And how much joy you spread with you kind acts!
Yeah, we can only wonder about what's in there heads. Sometimes, I can only shake my head... 😊
There's a whole website devoted to this: https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/
Lots of inspiration and great ideas here. :-)
That is awesome! Thank you for the link.
I've gotten their RAK cards... good for paying for someone's coffee or meal in line, then leaving the card with the cashier to let them know they've been "random act of kindness-ized". 😁
I've always said that the world could use a little more kindness and common courtesy! Thank you for the gentle reminder @donna-metcalfe :)
Great post. The world needs more kindness. I am an old white guy. 50 years old. We were in Sausalito this weekend. I took a few minutes to take a group photo of 15 + tourists. They approached me. Be open to the world. Love, Peace, Happiness friends.
I love offering to take photos of groups, because otherwise the person taking the photo is left out of the picture. It's always a fun interaction. :-D
Yes its always fun and often a cross cultural interaction that you wouldn't have otherwise.
I bet they asked you because you looked like a nice person. Just a moment to do a kindness and smiles all around! Yes, more of that, please! There are good people everywhere so there is always hope.
(Please don't say, or think, that 50 is old! You're just a youngster compared to me! And I've done a whole lot of living since I was 50!)
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STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
random acts of kindness are all over steemit. great post.
I see you are here on steemit a few months now, just had a look around your account. I know when people start here they get a few welcome messages, but after that, if you have not joined a community you can easily get lost in the sea of posts. How are you getting on here on steemit anyway?
I’m doing a little bit of outreach this week with those that have been here a few months and have had some time to get a feel for the place. Would love to know your thoughts so far? Is there anything I can help you with or questions I can answer for you?
One tip I am spreading this week is to check your mentions. being part of steemit includes engagement and if someone happens to mention you in a post, you should really check it out. You can find your mentions on https://steemworld.org/@donna-metcalfe, if you look through the tabs, you will find all your mentions.
Regards
Paula
STEEM Witness @steemcommunity
Hi Paula, how nice of you to check in with me!
So kindness is 'trending' here? That makes me happy!
How funny, I just checked in on steemworld a few days ago and saw the mentions section. I keep steemd open to watch for new activity but I guess I should be checking both.
I felt pretty lost here for the first month or so, but had a goal of posting every day. That's still my goal but life got weird for a while. Even when I have nothing to post I try to at least comment and vote and keep up with my friends here. And I've met some really nice people.
From what I've read I could meet more people and groups on discord. I have gone there but I just see this blank screen. When I've gone there by invitation I do find people there but don't know how to get in on a conversation when I go on my own. I'm not asking for a lesson on how to use it, but if you could point me in the right direction that would be great!
Another question - one of my friends said they looked back at my earlier posts and really liked them (I thought they were pretty good too!) but I had few followers then so very few votes. They suggested I repost some of them but they weren't sure what the rules were about that. It seems to me that would be frowned on. They said maybe if I added something to update them, that might make it okay. Do you know the rules about that?
Overall I'd say I'm reasonably content here. I believe in Steemit, I've invested in Steem to make my votes more valuable, and I plan to keep on with it!
Thanks again for asking!
reposting will be picked up and flagged by cheetah, unless you get permission from them in the first place. you will find their contact details in this post https://steemit.com/steemit/@cheetah/faq-about-cheetah
Discord can be as difficult to get use to as steemit lol. Most communities on discord will have a number of tags, you will find these on he left of the chat screen, they will all start with #, so #postpromotion is where you would leave links to your posts or other posts you would like to promote #general would be where chitchat would happen and networking. depending on the community will depend on the tags. you might find for example #contests. contests are a great way to get involved with communities. as for joining in on general chat, well its a matter of just typing, just say hi, people dont bite, tell them you are new there and even ask them where to find the contests.
If you would like to improve your engagement and mingle with the most active people on the platform, then do check out @abh12345 engagement legaue, that goes out every sunday and you just have to leave a comment on the post that you want in. chatting to the people on this post means you will be chatting with the movers and shakers :-)
https://steemit.com/engagement/@abh12345/6fhokz-the-curation-and-engagement-leagues-steem-prizes-and-steem-bounty-available
Hope that helps?
If you ever have any questions or queries please do just hop over to any of my posts and leave a comment, dont worry if it is off topic and i will do by best to help you
Thank you, I'm going to print out the Discord information and keep it by me and follow it out step-by-step until I figure it out! I feel a little timid stepping in where everyone knows each other but I'll take that big breath first!
As for the reposting, thank you for your answer. It's what I was thinking too and I don't want to get on the wrong side of @cheetah! If it was an okay thing to do I think a lot more people would be doing it, reworking old posts when the whole point is to bring fresh content!
Thank you for your help and your offer of more when needed!
you are most welcome - Im here to help