No matter how small a compliment or gesture of goodwill, with pure intentions, it can have such a great affect on someone’s self-esteem.
I live by the motto, “Today is going to be a great day, and do you know why? Because everyday is a great day.”
You might think cynical thoughts right now and combat this ideology by saying “Oh yeah, whatever hippy, but what if this happened..”. If you go around thinking up negative situations, you won’t see the beauty you in every day. Whether the reason for the great day is you finished a book you’ve been reading for a while, your crush finally sending you on Facebook or maybe even that you made it through another day. There are hidden gems in every day.
Now imagine that you were the reason why someone said to themselves, “Today was a great day.” Imagine that you were the person that gifted a friend their new favourite book, or the person that asked a friend out for a date, or even if you asked a stranger if they were ok; and it turned out that this next 10 minute chat could be a reason to why they make it through another day.
Random acts of kindness are self-less acts of spreading positivity and celebrating achievements. Whether that’s with someone you know, a stranger, or someone somewhere in between, (like that person on Instagram that you follow, but you just admire their beauty from afar). No matter how small a compliment (with pure intentions) or gesture of goodwill (also with pure intentions), a random act of kindness can have such a great affect on someone’s day.
Since this month is “Care and Compassion month”, I think it would be a great idea to follow through with some random acts of kindness. Below is a quiz, who doesn’t love a quiz, where you can find out based on your personality, suggestions of what acts of kindness you could give to someone.
But don’t forget to also be kind to yourself! That’s so important! You’re so important.
If you occasionally struggle to be positive about yourself, here are a few tips:
1. Surround yourself with positive people. Look at the people around you, are the having a positive impact on you? I’m not saying totally cleanse your friend group but if you only ever hear negativity, it can rub off. Creating an encouraging and supportive group around you will do great things. Note: If you literally can’t change who surround you or you don’t have many people in your life; turn to Youtube. When I was younger, I watched a lot of Youtube. I still do, and I filled my subscriber box with positive people, with a good deal of them making LGBTQ+ content. This made me have so much hope and I learnt a lot of how to be positive from these people. The quote that I said earlier, “Today is going to be a great day…” was from an incredible Youtuber called Mark E Miller. Check him out!
2. Listen to positive music! Music makes you feel something, yeah we love artists like Adele, but if you’re feeling in a negative mood, maybe don’t put Someone Like You on! Here’s a playlist of music that I hope will help you radiate positive vibes.
3. Somebody loves you. This is out of your control, can’t do anything to stop the love, sorry! Whether it’s a family member, friend, a person you chat to on Twitter, your favourite music artist that wouldn’t be as successful without your 3,000th tweet about them; you are important to them. You impact so many people’s lives.
4. Find your problem, and slowly take care of it. I was very self-conscious of my weight when I was younger and it made me really unhappy. I never realised that I could actually make an effort to change my weight until much later and it made me a lot more confident. Occasionally I still have self-conscious moments, usually when I’ve eaten loads of carbs, which is like every other day, but I’ve now realised that my weight isn’t important. Like it’s literally not a problem, there are actual problems in the world. But it was a long process to make me realise this. Essentially what I’m trying to say is, be patient but work towards your goal.
There’s currently this trend of people thinking that it’s “cool” to be unkind and that trolling is a legitimate form of entertainment or something. Let’s make 2015 the year that kindness became cool again.
I’m not sure who or if anyone will read this blog but I really and truly hope you have a great day and I hope you do a random act of kindness to make someone else’s day a little brighter too.
Want to write a guest blog? Check out our themes and series’ on our Opportunities page or contact bradley@beatfreeks.com for more information.
Check out RandomActsofKindness.org for more stories and ideas.