I dreaded writing this. This month has not been my finest hour. In fact, it has probably been my worst. At the beginning of the month, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I put out a Kindness Challenge. It was such a great idea and I was excited to do it. I thought how easy it was going to be because I love extending kindness to people. Well, it didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped.
It seems like the month of February really challenged my love for being kind. It started off with health issues that caused me a lot of pain, especially when it came to walking. I know my facial expressions, which were more like grimaces, did not exude anything close to looking kind towards people. I’m sure the normal stranger passing by was wondering why I had a scowl on my face. Because of that my husband and son picked up the extra chores I couldn’t do and were taking turns helping massage me and get around. The frustration I felt at not being able to help out and feeling like a burden to them did not make me feel very kind. I probably was a very big pain in the butt in fact for them (although they never confirmed that and were wonderful, caring, and kind to me).
Then there was an incident at my son’s school where I had to be firm with the administration for handling the situation poorly. I was definitely more mama bear than kind. Because of this and trying to remember everything on my to do list for the week, Valentine’s Day ended up feeling rushed. It was still a fun day, but because I was distracted I didn’t realize I hadn’t clicked ‘buy’ on the gift for my husband. While he showered me with gifts, I sat back and realized his gift hadn’t come in the mail. I had to apologize for my blunder and he did not feel that I was being very loving or kind. More like the last check box on my to do list.
Everything this month went haywire. Between the extra tasks at work, things to do life wise and appointments that needed to be made and kept, lost track of my writing and fell behind on my deadlines. It was frustrating, disappointing, and I gave myself a hard pep talk. The last person I was not kind to was myself.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you wondered ‘how could everything have gone so horribly wrong?’. Yea that was me. As the day of Valentine’s Day came and went, I realized how I had failed miserably in my quest to be more kind. I had put a challenge out there for others and how hypocritical was I for not following through with it myself. If you have found yourself in the same boat as me, let me extend you (and myself) some grace. We are flawed people. We fail all the time. The reason it is called a Kindness Challenge is because that is exactly what it is. A Challenge. It is easy to be kind when you feel like it or when everything is going right in the world. But life doesn’t work that way. We are either going into a problem, in the middle of a problem, or coming out of a problem.
What I’m trying to say is life is as imperfect as we are and the beautiful thing about it is that we can always try again. I love the saying in Anne of Green Gables “Tomorrow is fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.” She is absolutely right. We may have messed up today, but tomorrow is a beautiful new day to make it right. In fact, if you find yourself messing up in the middle of the day like I did, take a breath, give yourself grace, and start over.
As for me, I restarted the Kindness Challenge on the 15th. Why should kindness only be extended during a certain timeframe? Everyday we can strive to be kind. We may not always do it perfect, but at least we try.
How has the month of February gone for you so far? Are you like this has been a hot mess (like me)? Or has it been smooth sailing? Either way, I hope all is well on your end and if it isn’t drop me a message and we can talk about it. I would love to shower some kindness on you!
