Celebrating World Kindness Day 2018
Emma Clark
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‘In a world where you can be anything, be kind.’
I’ve scrawled the internet to find who said this and all I’ve discovered is that a lot of people attempt to claim it. So, I’ve decided to do the same.
In a world where you can be anything, be kind
Stuart Fenwick, 2018
It’s such a simple I often find the simple ones work best.
Allow me to introduce you to Viktor Frankl. German concentration camp during World War 2. Upon his release, he wrote a book on his experiences titled ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’. Women are allowed to read it too).
It’s a short book but packed with some wonderful life lessons. One of my personal favourites is;
... There are two races of men in this world, but only these two the race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man.
Viktor Frankl, 1946
Please excuse the masculine-dominated language; it’s more a sign of the generation rather than Frankl’s beliefs.
Given the world we live in today, I think this quote takes on even more significance. We constantly hear about all the divisions that we have created based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and various other defining characteristics. Please note we have absolutely created all these divisions).
I think it’s important to remember that wherever you’re from or whoever you are, you can either be a good person or a bad person. You make the right choice or the wrong choice. You can treat others well or you can treat others poorly.
Related Content: Being a Good Person
It’s such a simple I often find the simple ones work best.
Every day we come to crossroads in our lives where we have options on what we do or say. Most of these are fairly insignificant in the long run. Deciding whether to have pizza or pasta at lunch is technically a will have little impact on your life five years from now.
When we come up to this metaphorical junction and make a decision, we have control over that. Another belief of Frankl’s is that we can control our actions and our reactions. Admittedly, sometimes, it is harder to control than others, but I would like to remind you Frankl wrote this from a concentration camp so hopefully, that puts some perspective on some of the challenges we face.
Giving a bit more thought and consideration to all these little decisions we make will hopefully lead to more people doing the decent thing more often. Given that we are defined by our actions, (see Jean-Paul Sartre and his work on ‘we are our choices’), the more and more we do the right and decent thing, we start to become a decent person.
Doing kind things = being a kind person.
It’s such a simple I often find the ones work best.
Related Content:
- How to Stress Less in 5 Steps by Speaker Colin Douglas
- We Planted More than 1,000 Trees to Say THANK YOU!
- World Values Day 2018 by Speaker and Director, Alice Beveridge