In a world where you can be anything, be kind.

What is your single greatest aspiration in life?

If you eliminate all of the other hopes and dreams and focused solely on one very specific goal, what would that goal be?

If you dedicated all of your resources, is that goal achievable?

Now…. ask yourself whether you might ever accomplish that opportunity without being kind to those living things surrounding you.

Kindness is often looked at through the filter of a convenience, or a gratuitous act. Something we do when appropriate, but hardly required in our path of life.

I would argue the opposite.

I believe that kindness is the cornerstone to everything else in life.

Kindness creates warmth and friendship, opens doors that would never have been opened, allows living creatures to bond with you, attracts others who may be there for you in your times of need, enables experiences in your life to unfold in ways that a lack of kindness could never possibly produce.

Kindness may win over an enemy.

Kindness facilitates our ability to transpose the circumstances of another onto ourselves such that our empathy and compassion are triggered.

Kindness can win over a stranger by opening a door, or holding an elevator, or allowing someone to cut into traffic.

Kindness is the true ambassador of your entire success in life.

Kindness has just a single calling card…. Your smile.

With the right heartfelt smile, you can trigger that inexplicable emotion in another who will go from neutral to friend in the blink of an eye.

Your smile is a gift that life bestowed upon you, so that you are most well equipped to engage in the animal kingdom and find commonality with other living creatures, human and otherwise.

Kindness is truly a divine gift. One that we are blessed with and which we are never taught, but originates as part of the initial operating system that humans are born with.

When a parent sees their baby smile for the very first time, there is a bond of magnitude that can never be broken. For in that very first connection between parent and child in which the child is providing the very first positive direct feedback, the parent receives a connection that defies all explanation and which carries for an entire lifetime.

Aim for your greatest aspirations in life. Pursue them with the courage, determination and vigor that they warrant…. But always arm yourself with kindness as your single greatest ally and you will never be alone.

Happy Wednesday!