Be Kind

Dear Diary,

Past couple of days , I was not sure about what to write. In fact , I was feeling a bit lazy to do anything. I tried so hard to be productive but me and my bed have a relationship that spans over a lifetime. I want to be with my bed but so many obstacles keep coming in our way. I hate when people come between us. You will be thinking , why is she talking about a bed with so much affection. I speak for all the people who love to sleep including me and how serious is our relationship with our bed. I used to get so aggressive when someone disturbed my sleep. As I grew up , it turned into annoyance which turned into pity knowing that the poor souls would'nt understand our relationship. Talking about sleep is making me sleepy. Let me write about something that has been weighing on my heart for a long time. A lot had happened this week. I wanted to write what I thought about it in detail but for some reason I was taken off track , in a good way. I was thinking , how the world would be different , if we just , at this very moment , decide to be kind. I keep asking myself , have we forgotten how to speak or to act. We don't realize how mean we can be. It starts with words which seemed like a harmless joke only to realize they would do more harm than good. Then slowly, people around soon follow suit telling themselves, it's just for fun and laugh to their jokes and may even tell a few themselves. Soon, it becomes something that's so normalized that they tell themselves , it's not like I'm hurting anybody. 'WRONG' I remember being made fun of the color of my skin or how I had a boring personality or basically the way I was. It started with ' I'm just kidding ,you know that right' or 'Why are you being so sensitive' or 'you should learn to relax'. It stuck with me for a long time. I actually believed it. Imagine being a teenager mixed with hormones leading to heightened emotions , you can expect a storm inside my heart and my mind. They say you can control your mind but it takes a lot of work. Boy, it is like someone constantly whispering in your head like a million times that 'YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH'. For sometime , I believed it and started to withdrew into a small corner , being invisible. It wasn't the best feeling in the world but I was too afraid to get hurt again. That's when God came into my life. He took me by the hand and led me into the light and showed me that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I was out of the corner and in the light and I found myself slowly healing. God gave me opportunities to put myself out there and I never knew what I was capable of. I was surprising others around me but also myself. God put me on the path to finding myself and showing me what I was capable of. It all started with a few harmless words but those words slowly start to build up until it slowly seeped into my heart and poisoned my mind. How does it tie in with what happened this week? Those harmless words and actions which became so normalized that everyone started to believe it. We did'nt correct our friends or our families when they said something that should'nt be said. We thought what harm it would do. It is a harmless joke but they probably actually believed it. Who knew those words would wreak such havoc. That's why, it is written in Proverbs 18:21 " The tongue has the power of Life and Death. How true it is. Some people say, the world is this way , so deal with it. Let it go through one ear and go out throught the other. How about we think before we say or do something ? Then people will say , it is called 'constructive criticism' but please note its constructive not Destructive criticism. Whatever happened to building people up with kind words? I mean how did we in the process of growing up unlearn kindness. Kindness , in action is something that is slowly diminishing. There are so many sitiuations , I revisit in my mind and tell myself , how I could have been better , been more kinder. Today we live in a world of 'Don't be apologetic', #cancelculture , Live for yourself and so on. Our words and our actions do make an impact in our world. It could be a small deed , words of kindness , a compliment , asking someone if they are ok or even opening the door for someone. It is a cycle , the more we do good , the more it changes the world because our one act of kindness might change somebody and inspire all of us to be better. "Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." Nathaniel Hawthorne Watch your thoughts, they become your words Watch your words, they become your actions; Watch your actions, they become your habits; Watch your habits, they become your character; Watch your character, it becomes your destiny. Lao Tzu