Courage and Kindness

For today’s post, I had something entirely different planned. However, today when it came time to publish, I knew my heart was elsewhere. After the tragedy this weekend, I found myself reflecting. I thought of how terrible this was, how full of hate, how unfathomable. Then two words came to mind that I just couldn’t shake.

Courage and kindness. There’s a lot that can be said about these two words. Courage is hard to come by, you have to muster all your strength to get it. Kindness is easy. It doesn’t take much to smile at a stranger, say hello as you pass by, or to lend a helping hand. The problem with kindness is that it has slowly become like courage: hard to come by. We’re all so busy (including myself here!) in our own lives. We keep our heads down, focused on the next. Next promotion, next goal, next to do list, next day. It’s so easy to not look up and see all the people around you.

We are all a community. We are all citizens of this planet. We are all people. We are all flesh and blood with beating hearts. We love and are loved. We may look different from one another but we are one in the same. We may love differently than one another but we are one in the same. We are one.

I think it is more important now to believe there is good in the world and most importantly, to be that good. Be a person that makes the world a better place. You don’t have to have extraordinary talent or make history to improve this planet we call home. It can be holding the door open or it can be accepting someone for exactly who they are. The choice is entirely up to you. I choose positivity. I choose happiness. I choose love and peace, harmony and understanding. We can not, should not be our own destruction. We are all family, living in one home, learning from one another.

It takes a lot of courage to go into every day committing to be your best self, sometimes just your “existing” self. It takes courage to let yourself be seen and it takes kindness to take someone as they are once they’ve revealed themselves. I hope to one day see the world in a constant state of never-ending joy and acceptance. That there won’t be this group or that group but one unit of all human beings. We don’t have to be the same to be together, we just have to be accepting and understanding. We have to exude love and dispel hate.