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Kindness + Empathy = Happiness Challenge
- December 15, 2022
- Posted by: The Teachers Academy
- Category: All Blog Postings Educator Resources / News Holiday Activities
“Think of your fellow man, give him a helping hand. Put a little love in your heart.” Jackie DeShannon
Teachers have the power to change the world. That’s not cliché, that’s a very real responsibility. Imagine if we were an empathetic society (All of us, I mean everyone!) and acted in kind to those who needed kindness. What problems would we have? If everyone is empathetic and kind, our hearts filled with love, problems that arise can easily be solved.
Think about difficult and pressing issues of the whole world (in no special order):
- Hunger
- Homelessness
- Mental Health
- War
- Disease
- Drugs
- Abuse
- Poverty
If everyone is empathetic, kind and full of love, how could these issues exist?
Today, these pressing issues involve (to name a few): ignorance, money, compromise, trauma, consequences, differences, suffering, greed and anger. We all know of several organizations that exist to try to solve these issues. We can assume that most people who make up these organizations have empathy and show kindness.
If we all could truly understand how another person feels and acted in a way that eased their pain, people (and animals) would be cared for. Empathy is something that is innate in some of us, but can also be taught and practiced. It is not always easy to show empathy but we can try. When someone insults or hurts you, try to respond from a place of empathy and kindness. It is the responsibility of us as adults to model maturity for our students and children. As difficult as it may be sometimes, becoming a mature responsible adult means to be respectful even when someone disrespects you. Showing kindness is the action that helps to ease the pain of another.
If you are not happy and want to be, start be doing something kind for someone else and reflect on how it makes you feel. I promise you’ll feel so good that you’ll probably get addicted to being nice! Yay!
Here is the Happiness Challenge…
Do something kind for someone else and then tell us about it! (You probably do kind things all the time but you have never told us about those things (yet). Or, tell us what someone did for you. You could also share lessons and activities that teach empathy and kindness or any advice you have for us to be more kind in the future, so we can all share in happiness.
We plan to create a blog of these stories to share with the public and (hopefully) share ways to practice empathy, show kindness and as a result, feel true happiness.
Thank you, teachers!
We wish you the happiest of holidays!!