“At the end of life, our questions are very simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?”

~Jack Kornfield

We all grow up with some healthy stories about love and some unhealthy ones.

By Tara Sophia Mohr  —  Tiny Buddha

I learned some beautiful, life-giving ideas about love, ideas like these:

Loving people means believing in their potential.
Love means treating people with kindness and gentleness.
Loving the people in your life means celebrating their successes and cheering them on.
But I also grew up with some stories about love that I came to see weren’t so helpful. Those ideas about love bred problems in my relationships.
One of those stories was: Loving someone means always being available to them. (Turns out, it’s not true, and living as if it is breeds resentment.)
Another was: Loving someone means always having space for what they want to talk to you about. (Turns out, not true either!)
Another myth about love: If you love someone, you do what they are asking you to do, out of love, even if it feels difficult. (I can tell you, that doesn’t work so well.)
I’ve developed my own guidelines for loving the people in my life, guidelines that express how I want to relate to the people around me.

These are some of my guidelines for loving:

1. Tell them about their brilliance.

They likely can’t see it and they don’t know its immensity, but you can see it, and you can illuminate it for them.
2. Be authentic, and give others the gift of the real you and a real relationship.
Ask your real questions. Share your real beliefs. Go for your real dreams. Tell your truth.
3. Don’t confuse “authenticity” with sharing every complaint, resentment, or petty reaction in the name of “being yourself.”
Meditate, write, or do yoga to work through anxiety, resentment, and stress on your own so you don’t hand off those negative moods to everyone around you. Sure, share sadness, honest dilemmas, and fears, but be mindful; don’t pollute.

4. Listen, listen, listen.

Don’t listen to determine if you agree or disagree. Listen to get to know what is true for the person in front of you. Get to know an inner landscape that is different from your own, and enjoy the journey. Remember that if, in any conversation, nothing piqued your curiosity and nothing surprised you, you weren’t really listening.
5. Don’t waste your time or energy thinking about how they need to be different.
Really. Chuck that whole thing. Their habits are their habits. Their personalities are their personalities. Let them be, and work on what you want to change about you—not what you think would be good to change about them.
6. Remember that you don’t have to understand their choices to respect or accept them. Read more

There are multiple ways to use social media each and every day that can benefit you and other people.

Tweeting, sharing on Facebook, pinning and other forms of social media actions can be used from everything to sharing what you love to read, what you’re doing, what kinds of things you enjoy and even help grow your business.

But there’s another part about social media many of us don’t consider as much as the others.

Of all the ways to use social media, spreading kindness is one of the easiest and one of the most effective.
I thought it might be nice during the holiday season to share some ways I think anyone could easily spread kindness to others using social media.
It’s one of the best things you can do for other people, and don’t cost a dime.

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Ashley Hoffman I Oct 20, 2016

Tom Hanks returns to Saturday Night Live to host the show for the ninth time this week. In honor of this fine occasion, it’s time to remember his well-documented random acts of kindness to total strangers.

Whether it’s helping wherever help is needed, or making someone’s day, month or whole existence, the good news continues to drop out of the sky. That’s just how the Inferno actor’s particular brand of benevolence manifests itself.

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Karlie Kloss, left, and Abby Shapiro The Shapiro Family

It’s almost impossible to avoid Karlie Kloss these days. There she is on top of a cab, crouched catlike in her indigo stretchy jeans; extolling the virtues of L’Oréal mascara; running in a sports bra, wearing a watch, on a Times Square Jumbotron; throwing a football to her father on Instagram; and posing in front of a building on her first day of school in NYC. Portraits of an effortlessly beautiful 23-year-old, graced with an enviable combination of good genes and ambition. Ted Koehler could have written the song he wrote in 1932 for her: “She’s got the world on a string, sitting on a rainbow.”

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In disasters, it’s human nature to band together and be kind to one another in order to survive

By Maia Szalavitz @maiaszOct. 31, 2012

As the East Coast awakened to the aftermath of Sandy— with millions of people without power, many lacking running water and New York City’s transit system crippled, possibly for days—many are facing enormous emotional and physical challenges. But at least, say experts, they can rely on the kindness of strangers—not just loved ones— to temper the blow.

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