Having a bad day? Try a cup of kindness...
Let's face it, we all have bad days. Days that feel like they will never end, days that feel like the world is against you, days that feel like you can't get anything right... days that feel like you can't relate to anyone. Now there are several ways to deal with these bad days... but I'm going to let you all in on a little secret... the best remedy for a bad day is not to shop til you drop, it's not devouring a double chocolate fudge cake, it's not complaining on end to your friends or your spouse about how rotten the world is... I find that the quickest way (though sometimes not the easiest) to deal with having a bad day is to take a few moments, take some deep breaths, and dive deep within yourself - embrace your spirit of kindness and share it with everyone within your radius.
Sometimes it feels like we get so caught up in the smallness of daily activities that we forget to reconnect with our kind spirit within. It's as if you are a body walking along a busy street- and in your hand is a set of three balloons... your head, heart, and spirit. Instead of feeling 'connected' it's as if these three balloons are merely tethered to your body ... just hanging out there.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL:
When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER:
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
AMELIA EARHART :
No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.
BARBARA DE ANGELIS:
Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.
BENJAMIN JOWETT:
We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.
BLAISE PASCAL:
Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
CHARLES KURALT:
The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.
D. H. LAWRENCE:
The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgment is never just.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX:
The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX:
So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind Is all the sad world needs.
ERIC HOFFER:
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
FREDERICK W. FABER:
Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence or learning.
GOETHE:
Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
HH THE DALAI LAMA:
When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.
HH THE DALAI LAMA:
Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.
HH THE DALAI LAMA:
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
HAROLD KUSHNER:
When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel.
HENRY JAMES:
Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.
JAMES M. BARRIE:
Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.
JANE NELSON:
Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?
JEAN BAPTISTE HENRY LACORDAIRE:
We are the leaves of one branch, the drops of one sea, the flowers of one garden.
LAO-TSE:
In this world, there is nothing softer or thinner than water. But to compel the hard and unyielding, it has no equal. That the weak overcomes the strong, that the hard gives way to the gentle -- this everyone knows. Yet no one asks accordingly.
LAO-TSE:
Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profundity.
Kindness in giving creates love.
MARC ESTRIN:
Kindness trumps greed: it asks for sharing. Kindness trumps fear: it calls forth gratefulness and love. Kindness trumps even stupidity, for with sharing and love, one learns.
MAYA ANGELOU:
One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
MOTHER TERESA:
Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.
PEARL S. BUCK:
I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.
PHILO:
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE:
Men are cruel, but Man is kind.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON:
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON:
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON:
We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.:
Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON:
Always set high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.
SCOTT ADAMS:
Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.
SENECA:
Wherever there is a human being, there is a chance for a kindness.
TALMUD:
Deeds of kindness are equal in weight to all the commandments.
THEODORE RUBIN:
Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
THOMAS BERRY:
If the earth does grow inhospitable toward human presence, it is primarily because we have lost our sense of courtesy toward the earth and its inhabitants.
WILLA CATHER:
When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.
WILLIAM MENNINGER:
Six essential qualities that are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH:
The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life.
The one element that can bring it all back together again is, you guessed it- kindness. One especially lovely lady who leads by example in this area is my mom-in-law. She, to me, is the epitome of a lady. She is also an avid tea drinker. There's something to be said for tea drinkers, most of whom, possess the beverage personality which is polar opposite of the daily coffee consumer. I like to think there is something magical in that tea. Something that infuses one with grace, refinement, warmth, wisdom... kindness. Tea. Lovely. Dain-"tea". Now don't get me wrong, I still love the roasted bean as much as the next gal. Heck, it's the wind in my whirling dervish sails. It's the mania in my tasmania devil dance. Tis the jitter een my gzeeterbug! But gosh, it certainly is a far cry from a soothing beverage... Let's face it, you'd be hard pressed to find a brazen Brit or a fastidious fair isle girl cooing "coffee time" in the late afternoon.
Nay. Tis tea time!
Imagine a cup of warm, delicious tea as a cup of kindness. Drink this kindness and let it permeate every whisper of your body, mind, spirit. Let it stream within - until it finds your inner kindness and the two meld together... like a river flowing into an ocean. Let it melt away anger, resentment, defensiveness. Indulge in a cup of kindness and reflect on the sage words of our elders. I am a firm believer that a nap, a hug, and a cup of kindness cure all things. Try it. It really does work!
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL:
When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER:
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
AMELIA EARHART :
No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.
BARBARA DE ANGELIS:
Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.
BENJAMIN JOWETT:
We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.
BLAISE PASCAL:
Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
CHARLES KURALT:
The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.
D. H. LAWRENCE:
The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgment is never just.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX:
The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX:
So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind Is all the sad world needs.
ERIC HOFFER:
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
FREDERICK W. FABER:
Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence or learning.
GOETHE:
Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
HH THE DALAI LAMA:
When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.
HH THE DALAI LAMA:
Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.
HH THE DALAI LAMA:
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
HAROLD KUSHNER:
When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel.
HENRY JAMES:
Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.
JAMES M. BARRIE:
Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.
JANE NELSON:
Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?
JEAN BAPTISTE HENRY LACORDAIRE:
We are the leaves of one branch, the drops of one sea, the flowers of one garden.
LAO-TSE:
In this world, there is nothing softer or thinner than water. But to compel the hard and unyielding, it has no equal. That the weak overcomes the strong, that the hard gives way to the gentle -- this everyone knows. Yet no one asks accordingly.
LAO-TSE:
Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profundity.
Kindness in giving creates love.
MARC ESTRIN:
Kindness trumps greed: it asks for sharing. Kindness trumps fear: it calls forth gratefulness and love. Kindness trumps even stupidity, for with sharing and love, one learns.
MAYA ANGELOU:
One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
MOTHER TERESA:
Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.
PEARL S. BUCK:
I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.
PHILO:
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE:
Men are cruel, but Man is kind.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON:
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON:
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON:
We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.:
Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON:
Always set high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.
SCOTT ADAMS:
Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.
SENECA:
Wherever there is a human being, there is a chance for a kindness.
TALMUD:
Deeds of kindness are equal in weight to all the commandments.
THEODORE RUBIN:
Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
THOMAS BERRY:
If the earth does grow inhospitable toward human presence, it is primarily because we have lost our sense of courtesy toward the earth and its inhabitants.
WILLA CATHER:
When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.
WILLIAM MENNINGER:
Six essential qualities that are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH:
The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life.
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