“Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.”

— Joseph Joubert

It doesn’t cost a cent to be kind.  What is uniquely wonderful about kindness is that it comes directly from the heart of the giver.  It is not dependent on anything external to us.  It is not a response.  It is a bubbling up and overflowing of the goodness at the center of our being, a gift of our created nature, and all we need to do is let it spill out on the people we meet.  Once we discover the untapped supply of kindness we carry, it becomes almost painful to keep it bottled up and contained — we simply need to let it out.

What is amazing about unleashing kindness on the world is the way it changes everything it touches.  When kindness flows toward another person who practices kindness, it calls their own supply into action, and the trickle becomes a stream.  When kindness flows toward a person who is lost in darkness, it touches them with such light that they may rub their eyes in wonder and find that they see a world that shines with color and beauty rather than shadows and shades of gray.

We must exercise kindness if we want to develop its full potential.  Just as great musicians must play scales and teach their fingers to move with skill, we must take the small steps that lead to bigger ones until kindness is not simply something we play at but something that becomes a part of us.  Have you ever listened to a great musical composition and found yourself transported to another plane — another level of existence — by its melodious beauty?  Music touches us from outside ourselves and lifts us to a place of beauty.  Kindness transforms us in a similar way, but it is the music that begins within us and plays sweetly to the world all around us.

Practice kindness.  Become a kindness virtuoso.  Let your music flow and bring transformation.  Together we can truly change our world.