Kindness Matters

    I just finished reading the book Wonder by R.J. Palacio  It was such a fun, quick, uplifting, inspiring book.  The premise is about this boy named August who was born with severe facial deformities, who decides to go to 5th grade at a traditional school, instead of being homeschooled.  At the end of the book there is a 5th grade graduation where the principal speaks of kindness.
Here are a few of my favorite lines:

Quoting the book The Little White Bird, "Shall we make a new rule of life ... always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?"  The principal then goes on to say, "What a marvelous line isn't it?  Kinder than necessary?  Because it's not enough to be kind.  One should be kinder than needed.  Why I love that line, that concept, is that it reminds me that we carry with us, as human beings, not just the capacity to be kind, but the very choice of kindness." 

 

Throughout the book one teacher has a Precept for each month that the kids focus on, here are my favorites:

When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind. - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

 

Your deeds are your monuments. -Inscription on an Egyptian tomb

 

Kind words do not cost much.  Yet they accomplish much. -Blaise Pascal

 

Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In allthe ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

As long as you ever can.

John Wesley

 

 

   I love these thoughts on kindness, because kindness most definitely does matter.  This book has given me a desire to be kinder than necessary.