3 Ways to Build a Kinder Future
Reflections on World Kindness Day 2018
It’s true. Here at kindness.org we really do think about kindness all day, every day. But there’s something powerful about celebrating World Kindness Day as an opportunity to reflect on what each of us can do to build a kinder future.
1. Get out of your comfort zone—and expand your capacity for kindness.
On the afternoon of World Kindness Day, our team was tasked with completing a list of nearly two dozen kind acts in about two hours. We were challenged to get a little uncomfortable with a wide range of acts for a wide range of people.
Some of the acts were simple, like texting or calling a friend who could use some encouragement. Others required a deeper personal commitment, like apologizing to someone, or signing up for a volunteer opportunity.
Many of the acts involved kindness to strangers, so we hit the streets of Brooklyn. Some people reacted with surprise and delight, as when we gave flowers to service workers and paid it forward at a restaurant. Others reacted with skepticism. We even got asked if we had a permit for our kind activities!
When we got together to discuss our experience, we were intrigued by the fact that it felt easier to do kind acts for strangers if we mentioned that it was World Kindness Day. We realized that getting out of your comfort zone is a great way both to do more kind acts and to challenge the idea that there needs to be a specific reason to put more kindness into the world.
2. Bring kindness into the workplace.
Stress in the workplace has a huge impact on people’s productivity and satisfaction. Kindness increases well-being and happiness. Can bringing kindness into the workplace make people happier and healthier at work?
Earlier this year we began testing this idea as part of our Work Kind program. In our own office, we kicked-off World Kindness Day by putting together a champagne and kindness breakfast with other companies and business owners.
Many people came for the champagne and bagels, but took the initiative to connect with people they saw every day but had never gotten to know. People left messages of thanks for co-workers on a white board we converted into a kindness wall, congratulated others on a job well done, and shared motivational words of wisdom. We’re not sure who added a drawing of a stegosaurus, but we do find it oddly inspirational. Creativity and kindness are a natural match, especially when finding new ways to surprise and delight others.
We also took our kindness activations to the NBA corporate offices in Manhattan and New Jersey. Employees were invited to participate by adding stickers with kind messages to a series of small kindness walls. We were encouraged by the amount of men who participated, since being kind is often stereotyped as a female trait, and by the overall enthusiasm for this voluntary activity.
Many employees see kindness as something worth investing time in at work. We can’t wait to explore this further in 2019.
3. Use art to express kindness globally
Kindness transcends difference, yet we also know that kindness means different things to different people and cultures. Art is a great way to celebrate the myriad forms of expression kindness can take across the globe.
This year we saw how the simple concept of a kindness wall toolkit could be adapted to give communities a voice. People used our downloadable materials to create over 50 unique kindness walls in 8 countries and 38 cities for World Kindness Day alone. Schools, workplaces, and even whole communities took part. Every kind note has an impact, and people wrote 8,367 of them!
Kindness math is now officially our favorite kind of math. Now it’s your turn to be part of the equation.
In 2019, try getting out of your comfort zone to try new kind acts, and let us know if you’d like to bring kindness into your workplace or build a kindness wall. Remember that every act of kindness has the power to take on a life of its own and spark so many more. We are thrilled to say that a kinder future IS possible— and it’s already happening.
