Hello my friend,
How are you? I was thinking about you the other night because I watched that film About Time. You know I love it, and there is a line that I thought you might like.
“I’d only give one piece of advice to anyone marrying. We’re all quite similar in the end. We all get old and tell the same tales too many times. But try and marry someone kind.”
Kindness is under rated when you’re young but gosh it matters when you get older, doesn’t it?
I have seen people marry for money, for beauty, for lust and for a need to have babies, but none of them lasted because they didn’t marry kind people.
Kindness becomes more important as you get older because you begin to understand there are limited years left and who wants to spend them with people who are selfish. You know you will make mistakes and responding kindly is a choice and one you want to make. You know that kindness is all there is because nothing matters enough to be a total, nasty prick.
Also, Kindness lengthens your lifespan and improves heart health, which makes assholes less attractive to be around.
As a teenager, I remember the kind boys weren’t the one the girls wanted, they wanted the angry, difficult boys, the ones who spoke back to teachers and smoked in the laneways near the train station. The boys wanted the girls with snarls on their faces and those who played with their hearts for sport and who would tease and say cruel things.
Now, it seems kindness is all anyone our age wants. We can see why it matters, and we can see how it helps. We know what the deep cut of unkindness feels like.
We can be kind to others.
We can be kind to the environment and kind to animals.
And we can be kind to ourselves.
I wonder if you have been kind to yourself lately. I know you have had a lot going on, and I know you’re working super hard. It’s intense and I respect that but please be good to yourself. Good sleep, good food, being around good people, that sort of thing.
Kind people are the best people.
Choosing kindness isn’t always easy, especially when faced with the choice to be right, but sometimes it is the best answer. Kindness doesn’t cost anything but for some, the loss of ego is everything, so they choose to be selfish or cruel or nasty. Proving your own intelligence to make yourself feel better and others feel bad isn’t kind.
I remember once someone said to be, ‘nice means nothing and kindness means everything’ and I think they are right. I can be nice, but I would rather be kind.
Kindness, like positivity, is contagious and this is the only way we can help ourselves and the world around us.
Choose kindness every time.
Be kind to yourself, my friend.
I love you.
Kate
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