The Kindness Box

[Geoff-Allen]

Altruism is the unselfish concern for other people—doing things simply out of a desire to help, not because you feel obligated to out of duty, loyalty, or religious reasons. It involves acting out of concern for the well-being of other people.

In some cases, these acts of altruism lead people to jeopardize themselves to help others. Such behaviors are often performed unselfishly and without any expectations of reward. Other instances, known as reciprocal altruism, involve taking actions to help others with the expectation that they will offer help in return.

Altruism: How to Cultivate Selfless Behavior

Altruism is the opposite of selfishness and involves doing for others without expectation of reward. Learn how psychologists explain altruistic behavior.

verywellmind.com

All the best!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

“To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.”

Abraham Lincoln

“While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.”

Chinua Achebe

“It seemed to me that the people who were genuinely thriving in their lives were the ones who had made room for well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving.”

Arianna Huffington

More quotes at this site -

Quotes about giving | Econation

Quotes about giving

econation.one

Enjoy your browsing!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Tara Brach kindness -

Cultivating Loving Kindness - Seeing the Goodness - Tara Brach

Meditation, Emotional Healing, and Spiritual Awakening from Tara Brach, PhD - Psychologist, Author, and Meditation Teacher

www.tarabrach.com

Enjoy!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

If we want to raise children of good moral character — with kindness and respect at the core —we have to be intentional about creating a family culture that is strong enough to withstand the toxic influences of the wider culture. I believe four cultural changes have made the work of raising kind and respectful children more challenging than ever:

• An increasingly angry, polarized, and uncivil political culture
• A parenting culture of entitlement (parents do all the giving, kids do all the taking)
• The dominance of electronic screens (and reduction of conversations through which values are transmitted)
• A hypersexualized culture (sexualisation of children at younger ages, normalization of extreme sexual behavior, and increased access to pornography)

Raising Teenagers to be Kind and Grateful

Want a happier family? Pay attention to your teen’s developing character.

parentandteen.com

All the best!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

A whole bunch of kindness books -

The 100 Best Kindness Kids Books

#2: What Is Given from the Heart #3: To the Sea #4: The Snatchabook #5: The Nice Book #6: Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon

bookroo.com

Cheers!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Book Roo kindness quotes -

“By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”

E.B. White

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.”

A. A. Milne

“‘Nothing,’ wrote Tolstoy, ‘can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.‘”

Gretchen Rubin
ᐧ
The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

“Guy don’t need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus’ works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he ain’t hardly ever a nice fella.”

John Steinbeck

“Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other.”

John Steinbeck

The full-list of 100 quotes is here -

The 100 Best Quotes about kindness

#2: “Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.” #3: “Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn’t know it when he put the blanket around you.”

bookroo.com

Enjoy your browsing!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

The value of loving service -

As soon as we begin to serve others, rather than only looking after our own interests, we begin to discover our essence, our truth, our love. Mahatma Gandhi too said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

And Mother Teresa said that at the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.”

Love has to be put into action to have meaning and that action is service. Love in action is service to the world. Similarly, through service we obtain a sense of connection, of oneness. Oneness is most clearly seen in what we do for others, through compassion, kindness and caring.

INSIDE-OUT Blog ~ Articles by Peter Shepherd

Cheers!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Those of us who are kind and compassionate experience clear benefits to our well-being and happiness. We may even live longer. Kindness also helps reduce stress and improve our emotional well-being.

We all have so much going on in our lives - competing strains and stresses – not to mention the recent coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns. This has sometimes pushed kindness to one side, in favour of what is urgent now.

It can be easy to show kindness when posting online, but when it comes to reality it's harder to commit to kindness in our real-life words and actions.

By taking the time to be kind to others, we can benefit from emotional upsides. It really does make a difference, especially for people who are vulnerable or struggling.

With everything that's going on in the world, now is the time to help make a kinder society that improves our mental health.

Kindness matters guide

This guide is written to demonstrate the positive effect that helping others can have on your own mental health, including some suggestions that will inspire you.

www.mentalhealth.org.uk

Cheers!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Bunch of videos from the Action for happiness channel over at YouTube -

One is all about kindness featuring Chris Anderson.

https://tinyurl.com/5hdmj9yc

Enjoy your browsing!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

The best way to perform good deeds is to think to yourself, “How can I make someone happy today?” Their happiness is your reward for your good deed. After all, knowing that you made a positive impact on someone’s day can make you feel pretty good. Beyond that, there shouldn’t be an expectation of what you’ll get from doing good deeds.

52 Good Deeds to Do Every Week in 2023

Doing something selfless for other people can boost your mood and support folks around you. Here's 52 good deeds to do every week in 2023.

declutterthemind.com

Looks a huge site!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

They also have a couple of videos about loving-kindness -

Declutter The Mind

Declutter The Mind is for the beginner, novice, and experienced meditator. It’s where people who want to clear, declutter and understand their minds come. If you want to understand the mind, sit down and observe it. My goal is to help you observe it (much more easily and effectively) with...

www.youtube.com

Cheers!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

This is a massive topic, especially in the realm of health and wellness: how can we help those suffering around us? We’re all here to help others, and indeed the “hero’s journey” (in which we take the lessons we have learnt from overcoming our own struggles, and pass them onto others) is one of the threads that connects us humans to our life’s purpose. But at what point do our good intentions cross the line from benevolent servant to a tyrant dictator? How can we help those around us without doing more harm than good? Here’s my take on it.

How To Help Those Suffering Around Us — Becoming Fully Human

At what point do our good intentions to help cross the line from benevolent servant to a tyrant dictator? How can we help those around us without doing more harm than good? Here’s my take on how to help those we love.

www.becomingfullyhuman.ca

All the best!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Ooops - tried to paste this image in but it remained too small to read?

So try this site -

https://www.happify.com/hd/science-of-giving-infographic/

Enjoy!

 

[Spice]

A happy person goes out of their way to help people. Some studies show that those who volunteer at least 5.8 hours a month tend to rate themselves as very happy. There are numerous benefits to helping others. For instance, when you focus on helping those in need, you spend less time going over negative events in your head. You might also experience feel-good hormones from a neurological perspective for helping others. It’s called Helper’s High.

Helping people is also a social activity. And people are meant to be social, so there’s usually a happiness boost from being around others too. Helping people also creates a sense of altruism from doing a good deed that can ripple off to generate more good deeds. And that enables you to feel even happier. If you want to be a happier person, your act of kindness can be big or small, and it’ll still have an impact.

17 Happy Person Traits and Habits to Help You Model Happiness

The best way to learn to be happier is to model yourself after people who are already in that state. Here's 17 habits of a happy person.

declutterthemind.com

Cheers!

And it gives one a sense of purpose that has nothing to do with monetary value.

 

[Spice]

A poem of mine:

Words in Shadow

Shadows of knowledge,
blessed words of the Lord God
spoken by mere man, and
passions arise;
but words mean naught
if love does not echo
the refrain.

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Doing an act of kindness every single day can help you live a mindful life. For example, if you think about doing a kind act each day, you’re thinking ahead of your actions. Thus, you’re able to reflect on what good you want to put out into the world each day. Keep a private journal where you include the good deeds you do each day to help you keep track. Mindful living is about being aware of your actions and by thinking about what good deeds you’ll do today you become aware of how you act in this world.

More suggestions here -

Mindful Living: 16 Ways to Live Mindfully in 2023

Many of us live lives where we're constantly in our heads. Take back control of your life and attention with these 16 mindful living tips.

declutterthemind.com

Cheers!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

The Perfection of Wisdom Sutras divide the practice of giving into two types, following the lead of the earlier Buddhist tradition. At the most basic level is the gift of material goods of various kinds, especially those goods necessary for life itself, and at the higher level is the gift of the dharma, the teachings, the very possibility of a spiritually significant life. But the teachings are powerless if hunger and poverty stand in the way. So the sutras teach compassion for all levels of human suffering and demand that material generosity be the first order of business for an authentic Buddhist. Therefore the Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom asserts: “Do give gifts! For poverty is a painful thing. One is unable, when poor, to accomplish one’s own welfare, much less that of others!”

For loads more - try this pdf I just discovered -

https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/character.pdf

All the best!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

How about a few links about making the world a kinder place -

Self-Directed Learning - How to help others​

Supporting your efforts to engage in lifelong, self-directed learning, here are online links to assist you in helping others and changing conditions in the world for the better.
trans4mind.com

Enjoy your browsing!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Kindness is the act or the state of being kind, being marked by good and charitable behavior, pleasant disposition, and concern for others. It is known as a virtue, and recognized as a value in many cultures and religions (see ethics in religion).

Kindness is a type of behavior marked by acts of generosity, consideration, or concern for others, without expecting praise or reward. Kindness was one of the main topics in the Bible. In Book II of “Rhetoric“, Aristotle defines kindness as “helpfulness towards someone in need, not in return for anything, nor for the advantage of the helper himself, but for that of the person helped”. Nietzsche considered kindness and love to be the “most curative herbs and agents in human intercourse”. Kindness is considered to be one of the Knightly Virtues. In Meher Baba‘s teachings, God is synonymous with kindness: “God is so kind that it is impossible to imagine His unbounded kindness!” See Kindness Quotes

What Is Kindness?

Kindness is the act or the state of being kind, being marked by good and charitable behavior, pleasant disposition, and concern for others.

slife.org

Cheers!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

There are many scriptures about generosity, sympathy, and compassion.

You can probably remember an instance when you were having a stressful day at work and your colleague bought you a cup of coffee because they noticed you were upset. Or maybe you were going through a breakup and your best friend made you a batch of your favorite muffins so you didn't have to worry about breakfast that week. Both of these gestures are small yet generous actions that go a long way towards making someone feel better. Being kind to others is a virtue, as the Bible reminds its followers via various verses. You may already be familiar with a few famous Bible verses about kindness, but there are additional equally important passages to remind you of the power of generosity.

Treat others as you want to be treated is the golden rule to being kind and compassionate. This theme makes appearances throughout the Bible, especially in verses about kindness that remind you to help the sick and less fortunate, and to choose goodness over evilness — even when it comes to your enemies. God will notice when you practice kindness, and will reward you for demonstrating this virtue. He knows it can be hard to choose compassion when you feel someone has hurt you, but these Bible verses will remind you that showing the same kindness towards others as God shows you is perhaps one of the most meaningful actions you can take.

Read the verses at the Woman's Day site - loads more as well -

40 Bible Verses About Showing Kindness and Compassion to All

"But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great."

www.womansday.com

Enjoy your browsing!