This February, the Random Acts of Kindness week is taking place now and we have 2 holidays in a row, one is Valentine’s Day which just happened, and today is Random Acts of Kindness Day to encourage people for giving back and helping each other with kind gestures.
So how’s your February so far? and how do you celebrate love and kindness throughout this month?
Kindness is beautiful, and giving is powerful.
Give for change
Kindness is the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate. It can be a praise, a thank you note, a friendly hello or a generous donation…That’s exactly the Random Acts of Kindness Day about. This annual celebration started with donating food and making a gift to someone or nonprofits, now it becomes a popular movement with small or large acts of kindness to treat people no matter you know or you don’t know.
Beautiful kindness can be seen everywhere and makes a positive impact in our life and community. In our families, we love and support each other as family members. At hospitals, many healthcare professionals work hard to help patients and save lives every day. There are doctors who try to cure the diseases, nurses who treat patients and their families with nursing skills and caring heart, emergency room workers who give medical services 24hours.
Just like firefighters and lots of everyday heroes, the frontline healthcare workers contribute a lot to our community with their professional practices and dedication. Proud of being a family member of nursing professional, I know nurses generally are kind and friendly to others as part of their work and living habit, they are trained to do something nice for injured strangers and patients with healing and caring services, they try to save lives and make the world a better place by spreading a little light at work and beyond, they really give a lot with less receiving to help people around them. That’s why nurses are called smiling angels in white.
Kindness practices do inspire people and change lives. Every day, we want to be better people to offer and help. We give to someone we love, give to someone who deserves, give to someone who matters to us, give to a nurse angel we don’t know personally but who keeps our community healthy and well. Let’s give to receive, donate for good, give to build an ecosystem with a ripple effect to pass along a kind act from one to another.
We don’t have to be a superman or healthcare heroes to save the world and many lives, a small and simple act to give and donate can also change someone’s life.
Change for the better
Be kind and do good deeds don’t have to be costly and a very huge thing, small gestures can make a big impact. Recently I joined a group conversation about helping vulnerable people and tackling social issues for a better and safer place. It’s a very open and interesting discussion among the enthusiastic participants, who are from public services, community organizations, different areas and neighborhoods. A series of topics were talked about safety and security, equity and diversity, accessibility and inclusion, education and discrimination. All is about community building and engagement to change for the better.
In uncertain times, the high inflation and slow economy have impacted more or less every one, especially the vulnerable groups such as elderly and older adults lack of income and resources, women in need of more help and support, people and families who have lost a loved one and experienced trauma and huge pain, disabilities and homelessness living with unemployment and affordable housing problems. By looking at the matters in our surroundings, some actions need to be taken and something needs to be changed with the community network from individuals to organizations.
Equity, diversity and inclusion are definitely important to build a healthy and resilient community. Today there are still many barriers for individual members from equity-seeking and underrepresented groups, indigenous and racialized communities in all aspects of life. There are still lots of work to do on equal opportunities, a fair process and diverse environment open to all, especially for people of color and minority groups.
Help others to help ourselves. So stop hate and violence towards others, we are all the same who live in one global community. We need to take part and work together, raise our voice and speak up, donate and support to keep the conversation going and continue to call for actions and change.
The community is ours, and we are the community.
Give now, act now
It’s friendly February and psychology month filled with kindness and wellness themed events. There are Groundhog Day and CNOY event (Coldness Night of the Year) about nature and eco-friendly practice, cultural diversity celebrations from Lunar New Year and Lantern Festival to Black History Month. There is World Cancer Day to raise awareness for health and fighting cancer causes.
We have Family Day long weekend happening with many family-friendly activities for family love and wellness. The Pink Shirt Day is coming up next week and an annual event of anti bullying at school and work, in the neighborhoods and communities. There are negative stuff and bad things happening all the time, but there are also lots of good things happening every day…so will you choose to give and change with us and spread positivity in the community together?
Kindness is not only a helpful act to build a more healthy living community, but also creates the health benefits for ourselves. Studies have shown, be kind can positively impact your depression and anxiety, and do good deeds to others can reduce your emotional stress and improve your mental health. The science and psychology of being friendly and being grateful are effective to help boost our morale as well as personal wellbeing at large.
Kindness is good for our health and our mind. Remember this: To do unto others as we would have others do unto us. So what are you waiting for? Act now to give and pay it forward mentality, treat others as you want to be treated. Wanna be respected, do respect more to others; want to be loved, do love more others; want to be helped, do help more others…just as simple as that!
Give more is to receive more. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes everyone to build a healthy and thriving community. Come one, come all, we need to work together and take action: do something, give something, get involved and start to change…In the spirit of doing good, let’s cultivate a healthy mind and life to carry out some kindness today and every day:
✓acknowledge someone who deserves
✓donate and support the nurse angel fund
✓help your elderly neighbors with a task
✓give to the community funding of FightCancer4life
✓be friendly to others especially to women and kids
✓be kind to each other and our animal friends
✓fund and give to the green change cause for a healthy and diverse ecosystem
✓express gratitude to family members
✓smile to people around you
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