Choosing Kindness
Sometimes all someone needs is a simple act of kindness to make their day better. This can be as simple as lending a classmate a pencil, inviting someone who looks like they need a friend to sit with you, or even just giving a friend a hug. Thoughtful gestures like these can go a long way in the mind of someone who needs them.
Kindness is a strong principle that asks for little. Being kind can often be free and cost nothing other than time. As a mindset, it posits that those who do a good deed will get kindness in return. However, even if this wasn’t a common mindset, I still have hope that people would be nice to others for the sake of being nice. Being compassionate for your fellow man does not even have to be where acts of kindness stop. Helping a hurt or stuck animal, watering a dying plant, picking up litter on your way home from work. Any of these can be a quick or thoughtless gesture that may seem small in the grand scheme of things, but in reality, will put so much more good out into the world.
Small Acts of Kindness
Here is a list of 20 small and easy acts of kindness that just might make someone’s day or at least brighten it.
- Say good morning to someone next to you.
- Offer to babysit for a friend you know needs time alone.
- Offer a good book recommendation to an avid reader unprompted.
- Give a homeless person a spare blanket or extra food.
- Put a few extra bits of change into a tip jar.
- Send flowers or a meal to a friend with no reason in mind.
- Give up your seat to someone who needs it more.
- Let someone move over into your lane in front of you.
- Forgive someone who owes you something and just don’t mention it.
- When you’re in the wrong, acknowledge it, apologize, and move on.
- Pay for someone’s meal behind you in line at a resturant or drive through.
- Help an elderly neighbor.
- Bring in treats for your friends, family, or coworkers just cause.
- Compliment a stranger’s outfit
- Offer to take someone’s photo if you see them struggling.
- Let someone underneath your umbrella.
- Take care of the planet: Ensure you recycle. Turn the water off while you brush your teeth or between soaping your hands. Plant a tree.
- Tell someone a pun or a dumb joke.
- Give someone a present just cause it reminds them of you.
- Send that text message to someone you haven’t talked to for a while.
Learning to be Compassionate Through SEL
Social and emotional learning (SEL), it the process through which people learn how to develop healthy emotional regulation and apply their knowledge and skills to manage their emotions, achieve goals, and feel and show empathy for others. SEL is a step towards starting and maintaining supportive and emotionally healthy relationships and making responsible and kind decisions. These kind decisions could be for taking care of yourself and for being nice to others. With the relationship skills and social awareness that comes with SEL, knowing how to help someone couldn’t be easier. You have to be aware of an issue to help.
Resources:
“Fundamentals of SEL – CASEL.” CASEL, 27 Nov. 2024, casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel.