It’s impossible for everyone to agree on the same thing or be on the same page. We live in a world where love and basic human kindness is seen as a weakness. What do we get from loving and being kind? I mean, nothing tangible, right?
Love and kindness has a way of spreading. It is like a beautiful disease that I desperately wish would become an epidemic. Kindness is taking into consideration another person without expecting anything in return. When you show genuine interest in another person, you are telling them that they are seen, recognized, heard, and most importantly, they are not alone in the world.
Honestly, we are all a mess. We are all flawed. The thing is that no matter how kind or genuine you may choose to be, there will be people out there who will misunderstand you or hurt you. There will be people who do things for others at the cost of themselves yet still be misunderstood.
My kindness took years of practice, struggle, and hurt from others. The one thing I do know is that I will continue to be kind despite everything that is thrown my way. It doesn’t matter the situation I am in or how hurt I feel because at the end of the day, I am thinking about how it makes me feel to choose kindness: happy.
Many times people will be coaxed into standing up for themselves. People will misunderstand and say that you continue to allow yourself to get taken advantage of by being too kind, but you know what? To me, you are strong because I know that instead, you are choosing kindness in order to show someone how to love. You are standing up for yourself, but choosing to do so with kindness and, that is admirable.
Part of me likes to think that kind hearts feel and understand pain and choose to not inflict it on others. Call me naïve, but why I do I feel so fulfilled even on my worst days?
Have you ever noticed if you are good at something, you love it? If you are bad at something, you dislike it or hate it? That goes with everything. It can be a subject, an activity, or even a person, including yourself. How do we turn something we hate into something we love? We try to become good at it. What does it take? Practice.
We tend to be our worst critics. If we do not do something right or have failed to succeed at something, we naturally start to put ourselves down. What I realized is self-love takes practice. I love myself wholeheartedly and try to understand the perspective of others. Maybe, this is the reason why I love, have faith, and give everyone the benefit of the doubt – because I have found that love and faith in myself first.
Once you start practicing love, you will start to feel unstoppable despite the circumstance or struggles that come your way. This doesn’t mean you have to be okay with someone who hurts you, but you must learn to kindly accept what is being thrown your way with grace and faith that life isn’t always going to run smoothly.
At first, when things wouldn’t go my way or I felt like I had been done wrong, I would get frustrated, and at times, I still do. This is completely normal. Once I got enough practice at not reacting to how others treat me but rather, how I treat myself and how I want to treat others, I started feeling genuinely happy.
You may think I am naïve. You may think that I am living in a fairy-tale world. You may even call me crazy, but the fact of the matter is I adore being kind even when it’s difficult. People will always find a way to dislike others. I am not perfect, and I will have my moments, but I will always resort to kindness and practice it by genuinely apologizing for my actions.
Loving yourself is the first step in loving others. We may dislike people, get easily annoyed, frustrated, or sad. Those are all normal feelings, but often times, we get consumed in the negativity, that we forget that humans are flawed. Why do we hold things against people? Why do we hurt people? Why do we gossip? Why do we judge? Why do we not forgive? Why do we take revenge? It’s an ongoing cycle. It never seems to stop. These things will inevitably happen, but knowing that we are all flawed is what makes me want to practice kindness and learn how to love these imperfections in every individual.
Humans tend to make things far more complicated than they need to be, but I guess that is what makes us intricate species. I’ve started to look at simplicity and admire it for what it is. I want to love everyone as best as I can. I understand that not everyone is going to love me back. Not everyone is going to understand. Not everyone is going to value my friendship. Not everyone is going to treat me the way I treat him or her. Not everyone is capable.
I just don’t want to allow any of these things to disable me. I don’t want to treat people the way that they treat me, but I do want to treat them the best way I know how, regardless of how they treat me. I want to love people past their past, past their mistakes, past their flaws, and past their pride. I want to give those souls light when it’s dark because God isn’t holding me responsible for their choices, but rather holding me responsible for the light that he gave me. I just want to keep shining and love everyone anyway because life is too short to hold onto hate and our world needs more love.