It cost 0 cents to be Kind

We live in a world where we talk about our country's advancement, yet we are only 57 years removed from segregation. We live in a world where while the shackles of slavery have been removed yet there is a need for a Black Lives Matter movement. We live in a world where I as a white woman cannot imagine a mother's agony at having to worry every time her son left the house if he was going to be gunned down or pulled over because of the color of his skin. We live in a world where I as a high functioning autistic person am frightened and saddened by deaths like that of Elijah McClain. In a world that is often so somber, so muddied grey by despair and violence where do you find inspiration? In my opinion kindness can be a doorway to change. It can help take a person from a place of inaction to action and vice versa. Kindness isn't focused on one agenda more than another because it is a human agenda. One random word of kindness from a complete stranger during my teenage years inspired me not to kill myself. It was the inspiration that someone who didn't know me at all could be kind without feeling obligated to do so or making me feel lesser than began my dream of living a kind life.

With the previous in mind this year I aim to be a better human being because kindness cost 0 cents. To grasp that kindness is more than donating your time and your money is a hard concept. Kindness is giving your active attention and all your senses to something or someone without a hope or promise of reward. Last year I began a small charity where I grew and canned food for one family in need for six months. The previous grew into preparing a few essential newborn kits to give out to expectant mothers in need. Finally, I began building backpacks for the homeless with sleeping bags and essentials that aren't usually giving to them. It was in between all of what I thought was kindness a conversation with a woman in need changed my perspective. I had just dropped off her second food order with her son. She thanked me as she had before, but this time she sent me a sorry for lying about her son being on temporary disability that he was actually a drug addict. I assured her no harm was done because a person in need is in need no matter of the circumstance. Then it hit. I had been so busy trying to be kind to people that I didn't take the time to really get to know this woman. I was so lost in the action of being kind that I as many of us often do actually lose the ability to do so. I was treating this woman like a problem that needed to be fixed, when she wasn't the problem the circumstance that brought her there was. Kindness is not just using your hands to take action, but it's using your heart to feel, your ears to listen and your mouth to reassure.

This year I want to do more than just act with kindness in mind. I want to be that random cashier that gives kids stickers because sometimes it's the little things that sometimes create the most magic. I want to be the person that doesn't stand by as relatives and friends put down those of a different sexuality because you shouldn't have to grow thick skin just because you are different. I want to make it a point to ask and listen to people about their lives. I want to do more than understand people's problems I want to look at what causes them to be there. I want to continue to find ways to help my community even if it is only in small ways. Most of all I want to be the gardener with one hand in the dirt and the other out to my neighbor. However, I know despite this list that displays my hopes for future kindness some days the only thing I will accomplish is just being myself. Staying true to yourself and being yourself in a world where we try to jam everyone into cookie cutter molds can be inspiration in itself. This year I want to learn to not just dream but be the dream I want to see in the world. I look out into my small town where half of my graduating class is in the busted papers for meth. Where we have a large racist population putting down the hardworking Hispanic people in our community. The same racist that then flock to the Mexican restaurants after church on Sundays. I see the darkness that my town can hold, but it just makes the good parts you see even better. It is my vow to myself to make sure that I help others see often the things we think distance us most from everyone else is what not only makes us important, but valuable to others. In my dreams I see a world where all children have food and home. In my dreams we celebrate our differences for how they bring us together instead of how they set us apart. In my dreams mothers won't have to sit and worry if there children will make it home due to their skin color.

Kindness isn't a dollar you toss into the salvation army bucket at Christmas or toys you buy for a child on the Angel Tree. Kindness is a choice, an action, but more than that it is a lifestyle. God made the mountains and the ocean. The two couldn't be more different, but both are vital pieces of the puzzle we call earth. Kindness if often reminding people they are a vital part of this puzzle, we all are. It's not just a pretty picture of someone giving money to a homeless person on the street it's the sad and somber conversation with them about their life and feelings afterward. Kindness is not the easiest choice it's something you have to even fight against yourself to choose.

The dreams we dream are more than just brisk thoughts in the night. They can become reality if we let them. Kindness is learning to become the dream you want to see. Remember it cost 0 cents to be truly kind.