Giving and receiving kindness are easy ways to feel good and to help others feel good too. People, organizations, and societies thrive when they are grounded in a culture of kindness.
Interpretation
Kindness benefits both the giver and receiver, creating a positive community.
This quote emphasizes the importance of kindness in fostering a supportive and thriving environment. It suggests that both individuals and societies flourish when they embrace and practice kindness, leading to mutual benefit and well-being.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about building community initiatives.
I think sometimes in the focus on deep friendships and on romantic relationships, we can lose sight of how important the small connections we make are with strangers and with people that we may encounter for just a few seconds or a few minutes, whether it's the barista at our coffee shop or the stranger next to us on the subway.
Without strong communities, we cannot pull together during times of hardship. Our diversity turns from a source of strength to a source of conflict.
One of the things that happens in our regular lives is that when we're in moments of pain or feeling alone, we may hesitate to reach out to others because we may think - they're not going through the same experiences I am.
There's a tremendous sense of shame that people who are lonely feel. I say that as someone who felt ashamed of being lonely as a child and even at points during adulthood.
Our health care workers are the heroes of the Covid-19 response.
What you quickly realize once you commit to getting more sleep is it can increase your productivity, it can improve your mood. And that doesn't just help you at work, but it helps you be the kind of person you want to be with your family and your friends and that's ultimately what matters most.
Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
The happiness of the drop is to die in the river.
Living a good life leads to enduring happiness. Goodness in and of itself is the practice AND the reward.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?
When we determine to dwell on the good and excellent things in life, we will be so full of those things that they will tend to swallow our problems.
Since our society equates happiness with youth, we often assume that sorrow, quiet desperation, and hopelessness go hand in hand with getting older. They don't. Emotional pain or numbness are symptoms of living the wrong life, not a long life.
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