Look For Kindness and You Will Find It!

As I have been working on cutting down the negativity in my life I have discovered that I often only see what I am looking for. If I am expecting people to be rude and uncaring, that is usually all that I see. This led to the decision to look for the small acts of kindness that surround me everyday, but often goes unnoticed.

On Thursday I took the kids on an outing to Costco (I know, I know, we are wild and crazy) not even thinking that it was the beginning of the month and that it was closed the day before for the holiday. It was much more crowded then I would have expected for a Thursday around 1 and I really try not to take the kids shopping in crowds because it stresses me out! I can not even count the times that they have been hit/ bumped by carts and criticized for being in the way of grumpy shoppers in crowded stores over the years.
Since we were already in the parking lot by the time I realized my mistake I figured we might as well brave the crowd and venture in. It was very crowded. There were at least 5-10 carts down every side isle in the store and many more in main ones, and although I am sure there were many a hurried shopper cursing everyone else for being in there way, I am happy to report I did not witness them.

Source

Instead I saw a women reaching for some cherries that were above her head and the container opening and spilling out all over the floor. I also saw one women, and then another, stop their shopping and bend over to help her pick them up. Even after the women had thanked them many times and insisted that she had it taken care of. I also saw a man unaware of what had happened walk past a run away cherry on the floor and then doubled back to pick it up and toss it into an empty box near by.

Sure these were very little acts, and took no more then a minute out of their day, but there were out of concern for someone other then themselves. They certainly didn’t HAVE to help at all, but they chose to anyway and that is pretty darn cool.

I am going to give you all another challenge this week. I want you to look for the small acts of kindness that surround you everyday, that you might have otherwise missed, and come back and share them with me! They can be anything! Big or small, I just want you to be out there looking for the good in each other! 

Project ME: Consider Your Motivation

Long before the clock struck midnight, and the New Year began I had been thinking about “project ME”. I tried to decide just what I wanted to gain from it, and how I would even begin to take it on. Thankfully the answers were quite simple, I want to have peace in my heart, and free my head from negativity. I want to be happy with who I am, and to be comfortable in my own skin. While the answers were easy the process to obtaining that is going to be the hard part. 

I figured if I started working on the negativity, my heart is sure to follow, so that is what I am doing. One of the ways I plan on doing that is by taking the time to stop and consider what my motivation is for saying or doing something I may not feel completely comfortable with. Am I not comfortable with it because I feel it is wrong? Or is it that I am afraid of what others might think?

A few days ago I practiced this for the first time, and honestly the outcome was somewhat surprising to me.

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, which I do several times a day, and I saw 2 friends had both posted this:

Now reading my blog I am sure you are able to find many instances in which I have used incorrect grammar, or even the wrong word all together! I try not to make these mistakes, but I’ll be honest, my mind is much more math oriented. Grammar just does not come easy to me. I can not even tell you how many times I have read a sentence over several times trying to decide which word pairing was correct, so it’s not that I don’t care. That is why when I saw the first comment posted was this:

“ Wish people knew how to type! No idea how one cannot understand proper grammar anymore!”

I was annoyed, and even a little offended. I quickly typed up this response:

But I didn’t post it right away. Instead I read it over a few times. The first couple of times trying to insure that ever single word was used correctly, and then to consider how it might be received. This is where the old Summer would delete the comment because it quite possibly would offend the original poster. I even left the comment un-posted and scrolled down my feed a bit before coming back and hitting send.

I felt the person very well could have gotten offended and unfriended me, but after really thinking it over, and keeping “project ME” in mind I felt it was worth it to have my voice heard, and I am glad that I did. I woke up to a PM from the poster in the morning saying that they hoped that they did not upset me and that they would never intentionally make someone feel bad over grammar.

Is this going to change the world? Of course not. But might that poster think twice about posting things designed to belittle others in the future? I truly hope so. 

Now this is where I am going to give you the challenge to consider your own motivations. Are you coming from a place of true compassion, concern and/or caring? Or are your intentions mean spirited and fueled by fear, jealousy or insecurity?