When I was 9, I wrote in my diary that I wanted to change the world when I grew up. I'm told that I'm a grown-up now. I want to spend this year spreading kindness because it's the only way I know how to create change.
For my 40th birthday, I asked for a list of 40 acts of kindness I could complete this year.
One small act leads to another. Even the act of asking for tasks led to people in my life thinking about kind things a person could do.
Today I completed Task #1
I chose to write a card to each child in my classroom thanking them for something that they taught me. It was enlighteningly easy and beautifully difficult. It's easy to come up with lists of things like the kids who hold doors for me, or ask me how my body feels, or ask if I need help.
I didn't want to write a boring card talking about things that any other kid could have demonstrated. I wanted to be specific.
Thank you for teaching me:
- There are many ways to communicate
- To listen in the silence to find brilliance
- To find humour in hard situations
- A person can be resilient, brave, gentle, fierce, and kind without knowing it
- To be patient
- much kindness can be in one heart
- To have empathy for all living things
- For challenging me to think and making me have to work hard!
- There is a possible solution to every problem if you think it through and get creative
I hope that each child who reads the words on their card, smile, and say something nice to someone else.
Be Kind,
To yourself too
xo
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