Today is World Kindness Day. It also happens to coincide with Anti-Bullying Week. Existing since 1998, World Kindness day hopes to spread empathy by inspiring and encouraging people to live and be kinder. 

Each year has a theme. This year's is "Acts of kindness start a ripple of change that can transform the lives of children, families, and entire communities."

Have you noticed that when you are kind, the world looks and feels different? Regardless of whether people respond positively or negatively towards your kindness, you are, indeed, making a different and transforming the lives of those within your own community. It's like the trickle effect-being kind to someone might change their day, which in effect might change the way they react to a situation, and thus towards the next person they meet, and so on and so forth. 

I wish that we didn't need a World Kindness Day to remind us to strive to be kind and just and fair with each other, but alas, we do. 

One way that we can be kind is by being generous. It can be hard in our culture of consumerism, but we often do have enough to share with other people. In fact, Krispy Kreme is even being generous to its customers by offering a free box to the first 500 customers of the day in honor of World Kindness Day. Perhaps go grab a box, purchase another, and gift them to nursing staff, educators, first responders, and even service folks who all help us make the world go round and could use a bit of kindness in their lives. After all, we know that public servants don't often receive kindness, and if we dig deep into the recesses of our own minds, we probably have been at fault and not shown as much compassion and kindness when something went wrong in our own lives. 

How will you celebrate World Kindness Day? What will you talk about with your kids? 

If you need extra resources, check out how to make kindness the norm via the Random Acts of Kindness website.