Kindness Is a Choice

Alyssa friend Nora is a very nice person. She’s pretty much kindness personified.

I think it makes Lyss a little crazy when I talk about how kind Nora is. And I get it. I mean, who wants to be compared to someone who seems like they only have one setting. And honestly, I’m sure Nora has her moments of frustration and annoyance. If I lived with her I’d probably see it as much as I see Lyss’s annoyances.

After Nora and Delaney left last weekend, Alyssa was being less than patient with Olivia. Now, let me state right here that Olivia can be quite a pill. She can be irritating and frustrating and even infuriating. Heck, I’m not always as kind and patient as I’d like to be with her.

But whatever it was that Olivia was doing seemed to me to be fairly trivial and so I said to Lyss, “You know, kindness is a choice.”

Of course she rolled her eyes at me and sighed. Because, yeah, she’s twelve and that’s an annoying thing to hear your mother (or anyone, probably) say.

So at that point, I laughed and said, “I give you permission to use that line on me when I’m being less than kind.”

“Really?” she said, obviously surprised by my generosity.

“Sure,” I replied. “But you have to say, ‘Mumsy, kindness is a choice.’”

She laughed at my idiocy and declared that she would do just that the next time I was irritated by either her or her sister.

And you know what? I hope she does. I hope that in the moment I can use the pause that the comment will create and calm down, relax a little and choose kindness.
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