What It Means To Be Kind

Kindness is to be genuine. Kindness is the act of giving without wanting in return. Kindness is hospitality. It is an intention to lift another’s spirits no matter their mood. Kindness takes no effort.

Every day this week I have reminisced about one moment back in summer 2017 while I was in America; it has stuck with me because at the time I was going through a really difficult period of my life. This Christmas has been tough and so I thought I would share a story about an act of kindness that truly made my American experience so memorable (and cheers me up every time I think of it!)

On the 2^nd June I started working in Texas at a summer camp as a lifeguard and Unit leader. It was a long summer filled with some amazing memories but one weekend close to the end of my 9 week contract, instead of travelling to a new city or going to a friend’s house like usual, I decided to stay at camp and go to the local town with some friends, grab some lunch and see a movie. We went to Applebee’s and had a great time watching the Texas Rangers (Go Rangers!) whilst chowing down on some classic American food. We were sat there for about an hour and during that time the couple at the table next to ours must have picked up on our accents and asked where we were from. We then got talking to them about the UK, how we were enjoying Texas, what were we doing there, and our plans for travelling. Once the food came all of us were pretty silent and the only break from eating was to check the time to make sure we didn’t miss the film.

A couple of minutes after we’d finished our meal we got talking again until the couple next to us stood up and walked past our table wishing us well and informing us that they’d taken care of our bill. To tell you we were gobsmacked would be an understatement!! We all said thank-you of course but to be honest I wasn’t sure if I’d heard them correctly… it wasn’t until we asked for the bill from our waiter that he informed us that the couple had already paid for our meals.

This has never happened to me and I was genuinely taken aback by the kindness this couple expressed to us, total strangers! They do not know how much that gesture lifted my mood that day… it made me forget just for a while the horrible time I was going through and that even though I was thousands of miles from home I was welcome there. I couldn’t stop talking about it for months afterward! This selfless act will be treasured for the rest of my life because it reminded me that kindness isn’t lost.

Fast forward to New Years Eve… all day I had been thinking about what my new year’s resolution could be and while scrolling on Pinterest (I spend way too much time on there!!!) I saw a quote that immediately caught my eye.

“Be kind even on your bad days”

Without further thought this became my new year’s resolution because it evoked a memory that taught me kindness really can make a bad day go away.

Thank-you for reading!

I haven’t been able to post for the past couple of days as I have been working but I have been able to do some planning; I have been brainstorming future posts and the topics I want to include in my blog in 2018. On February 4^th it will be a year since I traveled to Iceland and I was thinking of doing a five day blog post special dedicated to Iceland (costs, mobility, places to see, food, and accommodation). If you like this idea and would like me to do this then let me know in the comments below!

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P.S. the feature photo is from Pinterest.