The Kindness Revolution – Hugh MacKay

https://strategicteams.wordpress.com/2021/06/11/the-kindness-revolution-hugh-mackay/
— Read on strategicteams.wordpress.com/2021/06/11/the-kindness-revolution-hugh-mackay/

Sharing Thursday: Strategic Times and Sean K. Fletcher

My comments on Sean’s post was getting too long, so I turned it into a post. Please check out his site, strategicteams.wordpress.com, for more insightful and leadership posts. It was hard selecting which one to share with you, but I hope you agree with me that all his posts are worth sharing.

“The kindness revolution” ought to be everyone’s way of life; modus operandi. We can’t force folks who don’t live kindly or offer smiles, but those who do, should be the example others would want to emulate.

Be the change you’d like to see

– Mahatma Gandhi

Hugh Mackay, author of Kindness Revolution, clarified what he meant by kindness:

“By kindness I mean compassion, tolerance, respect, sensitivity towards other people. And the radical version is absolutely non-discriminatory; the revolution is when you are kind not just to your nice neighbour, but to the ones you don’t know or don’t like much.”

Sean penned that we should “show leadership in our communities from the ground up.” I totally agree. Like Sean, I already live the kindness revolution. And as Hugh Mackay stated, it should not happen only in our backyards. I started volunteering to “count the homeless” in my county when my daughters (both in their 20s) were 3+ and barely 1 year olds. However, I stopped three years ago when I realized that the count was not producing any change nor outcome that demonstrated that the data collected was being utilized meaningfully. Rather, and in my opinion, it was, merely providing jobs for the committee overseers. I also volunteer during Thanksgiving and occasionally when I’m aware of the need and/or come across a need. In addition. I am a trained CERT with my former local PD though I have been inactive as a result of family life matters and relocating.

Absolutely true that “Revolutions never start at the top … each of us must live as if this is already that country.” I commented the other day that “we, the people, are the government and we have the power, individually and collectively, to change anything as we saw within the past two years.” Another example is the recent U.S.’s social uprising. That was a REVOLUTION indeed! However, I will say that it didn’t have to get to that point for change to happen if we, the people, had acted sooner and not tolerated the status quo. Or we could just say that it happened at an opportune time. Maybe. Either way, and for the tons of lives that were prematurely lost, it’s always better to speak up sooner than later.

Anyways …

Covid, and Australia’s experiences, unfortunately were wake up calls to each one of us about what ought to really matter. Tons of takeaways from the experiences. A big one is that companies are now more willing to allow their employees to work remotely. Hitherto, it was not though many professed work-life balances.

Thanks for reading. Hope you check Strategic Teams out and appreciate Sean K Fletcher for reminding us, once more, of the need to live an examined life.

Hugh Mackay’s book sounds a great read. So does the one by Abraham Lincoln cited in Sean’s post. Readers, check them out, too. I hope I can read both books some day soon,