Episode 85 – Noticing the Kindness

This is Rebecca Clark Episode 85. Noticing the kindness this podcast is for anyone that knows they haven’t yet found and offered up their best work but are compelled to seek it out and do it. Are you ready to move your desk thistles? The time of year where we put extra focus on being grateful, thankful and giving. And I was reflecting on this recently, realizing that I have gotten into a bad habit of not sending thank you notes. Now I’ve gotten into a great habit of helping my son do this, So I’m trying to teach him to express thanks two people that help us for people who share and for whatever reason, just common courtesy. And often I have him sit down and write Thank you notes, not his age. This includes a lot of stick figure people, a few hearts, a few drawings that need to be explained, which is fine because I’ll often write a little paragraph explaining what it is. But I want him to have the habit of sitting down and taking a moment to thank someone for being helpful for being themselves for being kind whatever. And so I’ve noticed that I’m not as good at this right now, and I want to make more of a habit of it, expressing it verbally and expressing it through notes. And as I was thinking about this concept, I was reminded of a song that I learned at a very young age called Kindness Begins with Me, and it’s from a song book called Sing With Me and My Mother was a chorister for Children at church when I was young and she was a great chorister, everybody was riveted to her no matter if they were three or 11, because that was the age range. She taught 3 to 11 years old, and she often made little games and little posters and often had these little strips of paper that you could choose from. That would have the page number of a song, and I remember that be 49 b was the reference to a song called Kindness Begins With Me, and it was a very short song. But for some reason I liked it. I thought I’d share it with you. Today I want to be kind to everyone, for that is right, you see, So I say to myself. Remember this Kindness begins with me along that same timeline. The teacher of my five year old class gave me a little plaque and was a little girl pouring milk for a kitten. And I don’t have a special love of kittens or anything, but I’ve kept that plaque. I still have it. And it said a kindness is remembered long after it is done. And that’s certainly true, because here I am talking about it 45 years later, both the plaque and the chance to sing that song and the memory of the creativity and work my mother put into teaching hundreds of Children music. At that point in life, I’ve talked about us offering up our best work in life wherever that maybe that maybe a career that maybe entrepreneurship that may be in your home in your volunteer activities. It doesn’t matter where it’s work. It takes your creative effort. It takes your time and energy and all of your talents to do the work. I encourage you at this time of year amongst the hustle and bustle and the extra interactions with family and friends that may be taking place that you take a moment to notice the kindness. Others offered the effort. They’re putting into something the little ways they go out of their way to share, or to give and tell them that you noticed they may need to hear it. They may need to know that what they’re doing matters, and you never know. They might have decided in that moment before you tell them this that they don’t ever want to do something again. They don’t want to invite family for the turkey dinner. They don’t want to put up with snide remarks from someone they don’t want to bother cooking amazing food, knitting that scarf or going out amongst viruses and crowds or whatever to buy that special gift. Whatever it is they might have decided in their head. That’s the last time they’re going to do it because no one notices or cares anyway. But if you tell them that you noticed, they may give them the extra nudge, the extra energy and inspiration to keep doing what they’re doing, because sometimes we do need to know that what we’re doing matters to someone, and often it on Lee has to matter toe one person to make a difference. So today. Remember that you can be kind to everyone because it’s a great thing to Dio. And you can remind yourself that kindness begins with me. Not your neighbor, not your coworker. Not your boss. Not your child, not your spouse. It begins with you and me. Happy Thanksgiving. I am grateful that your listener I’m grateful that you’re seeking to do your best work. And one of these days, who knows? You may be on this podcast sharing what you’re up to. In the meantime, stay safe, have fun, eat some great food and notice the kindness. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the show today. If you enjoyed it, I’d love if you’d write a review and share the show with your friends, sign up for a weekly nudge at move your desk dot com. See you next Monday