Kindness everlasting

OK, friends: being kind is harder than you might think! Not that there aren't opportunities, it just gets incredibly awkward trying to rate the things that you do on a "kindness scale", in order to blog about it later. I've been putting off this post, because I just feel silly listing the things I've done to be kind. So bear with me while I blow my own trumpet for a bit!

On Monday, as mentioned, I walked my neighbour's dog.
On Tuesday I gave my very pregnant Visiting Teachee some knitted bootees for her soon-to-be-born son.
I spent Wednesday on campus, studying for and taking a test. Turns out that this is not the best frame of mind for being kind! I did make some efforts to hold the door for people, let them go ahead of me in line (one of my own favourite kindnesses to receive!) and just generally be a bit more friendly to the people around me. Instead I ended up getting annoyed with the testing center people for not doing their job to my satisfaction, or with people for crowding into the elevator when I was trying to get off, and other dumb little things like that. Not a very angelic day for me!
On Thursday it became apparent that everyone else was a lot kinder to me than I was to them! One friend took me to class, another invited us over for dinner. Nick gave up copious amounts of time to help me study for a class
On Friday I made one of Nick's favourite dinners, even though it meant a 40 minute roundtrip, on foot jaunt to the grocery store - and an old lady with a full shopping cart let me go in front of her in line.

By the weekend, i had drawn the conclusion that being kind is hard. You're not always going to be in the mood for it, you're going to see opportunities and not take them, sometimes people will think you're weird and creepy for being nice to them (Hey kid, want some candy?). However, (cue nice moral to wrap everything up) it is so worth it when it works! When I let the guy behind me in line for some on-campus edibles cut in front of me, I saw the exact same warm fuzzies in him that the little old lady at Albertson's gave me when she let me cut in line. I made a little dog very happy by letting him bark at the ducks by the pond (let's not consider the ducks, shall we?), and just maybe taking half a second to thank the driver before hopping off the bus actually might brighten his day the tiniest bit? I feel like there is enough negativity in the world as it is, so perhaps if we add enough small kindnesses, we can be a collective counterbalance for good.