Kindness

[zazen999]

I stopped been kind to people as most people are so rude, it really most made me a more miserable person.

You should be extra kind to these people - it really winds them up

[zazen999]

Kindness is what you make of it, and for me, is a feeling, and to me, is something that warms you inside, and when you wake in the morning, it makes you come alive when your bare feet hit the floor out of bed,

No, that's a hot water bottle when it slips out of bed and is laying on the floor when you get up

[OllieMartin]

Anyone got any examples of random kindnesses to cheer me up - either kindnesses that you have had done unto you, or that you heard about?

Right here on the Vine is a great place to find random acts of kindness

Amen to that.

Most people on this thread will know, and will have taken an active part in my story. So this one's mainly for anyone reading who wasn't about at the time.

7 months ago my brother and I had to go to hospital for an operation. It wasn't something I'd shared on the vine previously and shortly beforehand I suddenly felt the need to tell people on here as they'd gone from being 'forum members' to 'friends'.

Bearing in mind that I had never met anyone from here face-to-face; I was overwhelmed when BigMallly turned up at the hospital with a giant card filled with a collage of comments, thoughts, whishes and other kindnesses from pretty-much everyone on the vine. I'd say it made my day, but it made more than that. The card still has pride of place in my front room.

[OllieMartin]

I stopped been kind to people as most people are so rude, it really most made me a more miserable person.

You should be extra kind to these people - it really winds them up

Give them a hug!

[snohare]

Oh, here's an act of kindness that was done for me recently, and it was brilliant.
I don't usually do funerals, I really get upset, but last week I discovered an old hillwalking friend and mentor had died. At great inconvenience I went into town and took a bus to the crematorium, which meant walking the last mile up the driveway. (Yes, pity the pensioners !)
The service ended without enough time to pay respects to the family, and I was never going to have enough time to bus it to the hotel for the do afterwards, so I set off walking down the drive again. A passing taxi driver insisted on giving me a lift to the hotel, and even bought me a drink when we arrived. (He was an attendee at the funeral.) In consequence, I met all my old friends from the hillwalking club, whom I had not met in decades, heard about how Stan died and got closure about that, met the widow and was able to arrange to send her photos. And then I got another lift downtown from the taxi driver.
Now I know where to meet a bunch of old friends, it feels like a door that I thought was locked due to chronic fatigue has suddenly swung ajar - and all because someone saw me walking down the road and thought it wasn't right. And I'm sure my old mate is perched on a cloud laughing, because that's exactly the sort of world he was famous for trying to create.
By comparison, me handing over my all-day citywide bus ticket to someone without one at the bus stop downtown, whenever I am about to catch a country bus home, is small potatoes. But then again the look on that stranger's face sometimes is a treasure, and I always think I have had such wonderful favours done for me that I can never repay, that I feel that I have a lot of kindnesses to pass on.
You can see where I'm coming from, can't you ?
Looking back, any time I have been a real pain in the fundament to know, I have been miserable. So I tend to try to be compassionate towards those who have ingrown emotions - I have been there too.

[Polly Fouracre]

I bent over to pick something up yesterday just as one of my dogs in a moment of kindness leapt up to give me a kiss. I now have an enormous black eye!!

[bobleponge]

I would suggest most people on The Vine are kindly by nature. Given that The Vine is just a cross section of society, I would say that most people are kindly by nature.

I've met some Grapes who have shown me incredibly kindness and generosity, arranged to stop in at one of their houses to drop them off some English goodies, and left with the rear axle on my car groaning with the amount of goodies I was given.
Outside of the Vine, kindness is everywhere, it really is.
Sensationalist media sells stories, kindness doesnt.

[Patchninja]

I was pondering about people who are rude and thinking that you just don't know why they are. Perhaps someone's just been really rude to them, or they're ill or have just had some dreadful news. I would always hope that I err on the kind side just in case.

[wellie]

Well THERE's 'a first', to have one's sense of waking up each day sparkly and new and wanting to bring a bit of sunshine into someone's life and the world, to have it turned into a wet weekend once again by A Wet Blanket or a leaking hottle-wottle-bottle!? because what I said in my earlier post (No.30) is absolutely true, and that's how I start my day.