June 22 - To be kind

Day 173 of a year of Kindness

Today my cousin Catherine gave me a beautiful blue vase she made at her pottery class. When I asked her why she gave me such an amazing gift, she said, “to be kind.” At dinner tonight with Catherine and friends, I described how much I loved my vase and shared her reason for giving it to me.

“I don’t ever remember us sitting around talking about kindness,” my friend Amy said. “But now we do.”

Kindness is top of mind for friends and family as I participate in my year of kindness.Because they were inspired by Catherine’s kindness, my friends shared some of their own. Linda ran across the parking lot to give someone a carton of apple juice she had left behind at the register. Amy weeded a garden for a woman who wasn’t physically able to do it. Susie screamed at a car to stop when the driver didn’t see a woman pushing a grocery cart in the parking lot. Then she helped the rattled woman put all of her groceries away in her car. 

I wouldn’t know any of these stories if we didn’t sit around talking about kindness.Catherine’s kindness to me, compelled us to talk more about kindness, share kindness stories and get motivated to do more. Kindness is contagious and that’s why you have to talk about it!

Science of kindness: A Harvard study found that kindness is contagious and it affects our friends, our friends’ friends, and our friends’ friends’ friends. Kindness ripples out to a radius of three social steps and can travel far beyond what one could imagine.#bekind #kindnessiscontagious #kindnessisfree #kindness