A few weeks ago, when we announced our selection of Wonder for One Book One Town 2013, staff members and friends of the library sported special t-shirts emblazoned with one of the themes of the book, “Choose Kindness.” The shirts made an impact rather quickly.
An hour later, a patron paid another person’s overdue fines at the Main Library circulation desk. The two people were strangers to each other. Was this a ‘random act of kindness’?
No. It wasn’t. There was nothing ‘random’ about the act. It was a choice. A deliberate decision to be a little kinder than is necessary. And those two strangers, the one who gave and the one who received weren’t really strangers, even though they had never met before that moment. They were, and are, neighbors. As citizens of the same town, aren’t we all neighbors to each other?
We hope that you will read Wonder and take the idea of ‘Choosing Kindness’ to heart. Make the decision to be a little more thoughtful, a little slower to judge and a little faster to help. It’s not random. It’s a choice. And it makes a difference.
Choosing kindness is often a choice. And a choice each of us can make many times in a day — kindness often doesn’t cost anything; it doesn’t mean extra time or effort except, perhaps awareness. A quick smile; a hello; hold the door for someone, listen, be more tolerant, not repeating the joke that really isn’t that funny (and could be hurtful) . . . everyone who chooses to, could construct their own list. Every day, opportunities present themselves.