Kindness is like snow. It beautifies everything it covers.

KAHIL GIBRAN

Here in Los Angeles, we are delightedly sharing pictures of our mountains, crested with snow and proudly displaying hail on our windshields, because just the tiniest amount of snow here, is newsworthy. 

That said, what percentage of kind acts are regularly posted and what percentage of it is actually newsworthy? 

Kindness is equally a courtesy, a blessing, and a genuine gift that anyone can give to anyone else with the tiniest of gestures. When you are the beneficiary of someone else’s kindness, you cannot help but feel a luminance deep inside, that makes you feel special, appreciated, desired, understood. 

When we receive kindness from another person, there is an exchange of value that is above and beyond anything of monetary consideration. 

To the contrary, kindness is one of the most valuable things we give away on a daily basis. 

When you do something kind for another person, doing it altruistically, without any hope, or expectation of recognition, appreciation, or any other form of expressed gratitude, is the only way to create a true delivery of kindness. 

It can happen with a smile, or by holding a door for another person, or any one of millions of unique acts of service that enable another person to recognize that you appreciate them on some level, such that you are willing to be gracious with your time, your effort or your energy. 

If everybody were going around, working to express kindness in just a few instances every single day, the entire world would completely change. It would not happen overnight, but the slow, methodical value of kindness can only potentially be compared to water, for how is it that a single drop of water has any true force to it? Yet one only need to look at the Grand Canyon and see what the Colorado River has done to a territory over millions of years, to fully understand and appreciate that water, acting consistently, could be one of the single most globally changing forces on our planet. 

If we were to look at kindness through the same filter, we might discover that in that kindness, a single act may not appear to deliver anything other than a brief moment of appreciation and mutual understanding. Yet, if it is delivered in massive doses with genuine motivation, kindness can be just as powerful in shifting and evolving humanity, as water has been, carving the Grand Canyon. 

Take a few moments today, stay conscious of the fact that spreading kindness is contagious (in the best of ways) and reach out to another party in your world and let them understand how much you appreciate them, and how your simple act of kindness is just one of many different ways for you to demonstrate this to everyone’s benefit and delight. 

Happy Saturday!