It was in Fall last year that I heard Andy, the Director of PSCS, pitch his class called "The Practice of Kindness". It captured my attention. Deep in the throws of student-teaching and Vehd starting preschool I never made time for it. My father joined the class and I didn't even bother to find out where he ended up in following it. The class never left my mind though. In its place I read Vivian Paley's stories on the kindness of children. I soon discovered that I am a kindness junky. Stories of kindness give me a high like none other. Acts of love do the same. I thrive on surprising people with acts of kindness. I like looking for ways to be kind. This is not to say I am always kind or that I am some kind of saint. It only says that I like the idea of kindness.
This winter, I am warming my heart by joining both of Andy's classes. His Fall Practice of Kindness class got so wildly popular (The Seattle Times ran a story that appeared both online (http://tinyurl.com/yct838d) and in its print edition last Sunday. Local TV station channel 13 then did a brief TV story on it last Sunday night (http://tinyurl.com/kindnessQ13 & http://tinyurl.com/KindnessQ13-Take2). The story then caught fire online, being picked up by newspapers all over North America. It's also made the rounds on Twitter, most notably having been "retweeted" by Deepak Chopra. And today it became the "Idea of the Day" on bestselling author Dan Pink's blog (http://tinyurl.com/y8goczb)) that it ended up having 200+ participants from around the world. His is offering it again this winter. He is also offering an advanced Power of Kindness class. I am doing them both -- did I say I was a junky? I am also fulfilling a residency requirement by doing them.
I am four weeks behind in both classes and am trying to get caught up this week. Each of the last four weeks, Andy has posted a theme in each of the classes with a focused act of kindness tied to each theme. To catch up, I am choosing to focus on one set of themes each day of this week.
Here's my first set of themes -- for tomorrow:
DO SOMETHING KIND FOR YOURSELF, that you would not ordinarily do.
PRACTICE BEING TRANSPARENT IN YOUR INTERACTIONS
I will keep these in mind as I go through my day tomorrow and look for opportunities to practice them.
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