Kindness
There has been so much to deal with over the past 18 months. So much stress, uncertainty and change. Our Community Impact Commissioner, Callum Holt, has written a blog about the importance of being kind - kind to ourselves and kind to others - as we all navigate our way through the coming months, and resources for Groups to help make the world a kinder place.
It’s August, covid restrictions are continuing to ease and the phone is pinging, buzzing and ringing with invites to see friends, family, that work night out you never got to do, and maybe an invite to come back to face to face Scouting.
You find yourself zooming out the door more than you’re sitting on zoom. Teams is slowly returning to something only the whizz kids at work use and at that point in time you feel amazing, exhilarated and relieved. Normality feels closer than ever.
Or maybe you don’t feel any of that
Maybe the phone isn’t pinging and buzzing as much as it used to or the invites to all these places with all these people makes you feel a bit uneasy. Maybe your work has decided ‘working from home is great!’ and those human interactions that you’ve missed for so long are also creating anxiety.
Whatever combination of any or none of the above you’re experiencing right now, it’s okay. It’s okay to be excited and terrified, optimistic and apathetic, full of energy and constantly exhausted. We’ll all react differently to changing rules, being back in social spaces and that’s okay. All we can do is be understanding of each other, and be kind.
A promise to be kind
As Scouts we promise to be kind and helpful, and with our A Million Hands partner The British Red Cross, we want to bring kindness to every community. That includes our own community, our Scouting Family. So whilst the world still feels that bit different, we need to do our best to continue to be kind, knowing that others might be struggling.
Check out some of the resources on how we’re helping the world to be a kinder place
That might sound a bit far fetched, but it’s easier than you think! As Dr David Hamilton notes “what actually happens is that the person you are kind to ends up being kind or kinder to about 5 people... That’s 5 x 5 x 5 = 125 people benefiting from a single act of kindness. Each time you're kind, you really are impacting far more people than just the person you help!”*
*https://drdavidhamilton.com/the-most-contagious-thing-is-kindness/
