Be brutally kind

Sorry, be?

I hate being told to do anything, my life my rules. However, since we're here together, a little kindness never hurts anyone.

We tend to be incredibly hard on ourselves and the people around us these days. We HAVE to have a dream, we HAVE to pursue a goal, we HAVE to make something of ourselves.

But.. why?

Social media made us so incredibly aware of the world around us every second of every day, that not participating in it for one day can make you feel left out in no time. And not just online, social media is such a big part of our everyday life - even in conversations it sometimes seems inevitable to bring it up.
And what we see is all these different people and the highlights of their life. The result of something they've been working on, photo's of this amazing party they went to, people they've met, things they've made - but only (or mostly) the good things. Because why share what went wrong? Except if you want a pat on the back there is no reason to share your misery with the online community.

Now in all honesty, we don't do much else in a one to one conversation, we mostly keep things upbeat. But there is a significant difference in equally sharing your experiences and only getting information through a computer screen. That screen will not show you any compassion if you're a little down. It will not tell you things will be ok. However it will tell you that so and so just made a promotion and how to lose a few pounds with yet another, even healthier way of living.

Stop. Right here, right now.

Now I am going to ask you, is there anything you did these past few days that made you proud to be you?
Did you make something, did you let someone tell you their story, have you helped someone, did you do something for yourself? Anything that made you ever so slightly proud of being who you are.

We keep telling ourselves to be kind, loving, successful, fun, witty - you name it, someone thought of it.
Why not be proud because of the little things?

Life is not just about the main events, it's about the journey leading up to those events. Think of it as a road trip - you have a destination in mind but before you get there, there are some miles to travel. And when your car has some issues - gas, oil, flat tire - you can't keep driving it, you have to stop for a moment and get the issues fixed before you can safely return to your journey.
Why then when we face a problem on our own road do we want to keep going? Because you wouldn't have worked hard enough otherwise?
Says who?

Feel free to take time to live
Feel free to make mistakes
Feel free to explore your own mind
Feel free to be

The one person you should remember being kind to is yourself. If we truly want to be good people then sharing the thought that you can love yourself is an important message to carry out.
Because if you are generally happy, you spread happiness where you go. And happy people are far less likely to worry, argue or even care about little bumps in the road.

But again, this is my view on the matter and since I don't like to be told what to do I won't do the same to others. I share to get the word out there, what the word does when it's out is not my concern.

Life will happen anyways, we might as well make it enjoyable!

Love,
Anouk