It's cool to be kind

The great thing about random magazines, is that they may contain a lot of irrelevant or perhaps irreverent articles. But, just sometimes they contain true nuggets of worth.

In 'you' magazine supplement, from The Mail on Sunday, I found an abridge article taken from a new book called The Art of being Kind by Stefan Einhorn. Below are my favourite bits from the extract....

... "Kindness is the greatest thing we can offer those around us, and ourselves. Yet we give so many excuses for not being kind - lack of time or not wanting to intrude on another person's privacy"

... "Studies have shown that cooperation between people has the same effects in the brain as when we take pleasure-enhancing drugs"...

1. Actions speak louder than words
... "Every person's life touches thousands of others, and what we do in relation to another person influences in turn how they act towards other people"...

2. Don't look for rewards
... "Every day we make decisions that affect other people, but we may never find out what the consequences of our actions are"...

3. Be generous with praise
... "A generous person is not regarded as a threat. When people do not perceive any competition, they themselves stop competing and instead start to cooperate"...

4. Share the glory (this is my favourite)
... "The world is so well consturcted that everything evens out in the end. Sometimes we get less glory than we deserve, and sometimes we get more than we deserve. One remarkable thing about glory is that, however much we give away, it always comes back to us"...

5. Give others your full attention
... "Really 'seeing' someone means being present with the whole of our being. It does not take any more time to really see and listen to people, than it does to relate to them on a routine level. We do not lose energy by paying attention"...

6. Go one better
... "It is entirely acceptable to do good deeds for selfish reasons. We don't have to work all hours or take everything upon ourselves, but what we do undertake to do we shoud do really well"...

So, that being said ... I figured that I would give the 'Go one better' trick a try. So last night on the tube, I decided to give up my opportunity to sit down and offered my seat to anyone who was beside me. I ended up giving my opportunity to sit down away 7 times ... and to be honest I think some of those pleasure-enhancing centres got activated. Three of those 'opportunity to sit' offers were made to girls with heels on. And they looked at me with such joy, I could not possibly have denied them that joy.

I set you all a challenge... To you be kindness and joy. I am telling you, that it is a great way to start conversations... Tell all (with quite selfish reasons of-course) about your kind deeds. And watch how it encourages others to beat your efforts of kindness... Hop to it and make kindness.