Hello Everyone and Happy Wednesday 🙂

Let’s talk about kindness today.

Everyday is a good day to be kind and every opportunity to be kind should be taken on the spot. I was raised to always believe that being kind and being helpful to your family, your friends and people in general was simply the way to go and quite frankly, the least you can do on a daily basis. It was like being polite. It just wasn’t done not to be. Being kind was the norm, the basic decency, the habit I always had and never really thought much of…

Until I grew up, left for college and was confronted to the cruel and cold world. I realized that not all parents have raised their children the way mine did. Not all parents had explain to their children that it’s important to care for others, to develop empathy and compassion for those who need it the most.

Worse, as I went on with my little existence,  as a eighteen years old college student and living on my own for the first time in a big city, I was very shocked by how many people were not prepared for the hardness, the derision, the disdain and the meanness of other people.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think everyone should force themselves to be nice and caring and sharing all the time, that is emotionally impossible and no one should realistically expect that behavior from someone else. We are human after all, sometimes we’re going to be hard, cold, moody, distant and closed off. Sometimes we are going to hurt others with callousness and careless words.  It’s normal, it’s OK. Because we don’t do it on purpose.

I was taught to be kind. But it does not mean I never learn to brace myself for cruelty.

As a black young woman, expecting the worse when it came down to new people and new opportunities was a great way to protect myself, put barriers on and keep people at bay. It’s still is. However I can honestly tell you that no matter how unkind and uncaring someone was to me, it never twisted who I am to the core. Nobody’s own issues and insecurities managed to turn me way from my beliefs: Kindness is neither weakness nor it is surrender. Caring for people and things in general is not stupid or a waste of time. Being kind doesn’t make you less strong or powerful or capable that anybody else, it doesn’t mean you are to be taken advantage of, it doesn’t mean you can be ambitious or strategic or clever, it won’t be the end of you, ever.

Being kind doesn’t make you uncool, it makes you perfect. Enjoy today Shatzi.

Quote of the day

Picture of the day

Song of the day

“People Help The People”
(originally by Cherry Ghost)

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