it costs nothing to be kind

I am not a cynical person. I don't seek out the worst in this world, and I don't necessarily find the glass to be half empty. However, I don't think it's half full either. I haven't decided my stance on that analogy yet. I'm a jealous person; if I feel intimidated by somebody, my immediate instinct is to cut them down and convince myself in some way that I am better than them. My goal in starting this blog is to break that habit and hopefully along the way improve my relationships with myself, my loved ones, and the world around me. 

Recently, I was challenged to identify my core values. So far, in no particular order, I have come up with these:

1. Equality
2. Happiness
3. Knowledge
4. Love
5. Communication

Core values are defined as a person's fundamental beliefs, and I find that I carry these five basic goals almost everywhere I go. I have also found that my core values can be summed up in a single sentence, that being that it costs nothing to be kind. The idea that it costs nothing to be kind motivated me to create this blog. I just want to be kind. Will anybody, let alone the people I mention in future posts, ever see this blog? Probably not. But that doesn't matter; love doesn't need recognition to be valid.

I think it is most appropriate to kick off Project Gratitude by acknowledging the people who inspired me to do this. Firstly, I would like to thank Stoyan, for constantly challenging me to improve myself, to be more articulate, more self-aware, and for always being there for me. Without him, I would not be able to tell you my core beliefs or why I feel them. On top of that, he is the only reason I see any value in myself, and without his constant support, I would not have the confidence to start a project like this one. Secondly, I would like to thank Josh for always putting kindness out into the world around him, and being a source of comfort that I know I am always safe to be vulnerable around. His constant kind words and expression of gratitude inspire me to be more like him. Lastly, I would like to thank Kristen Manieri, a writer for the Gottman Institute, who wrote the article that gave me the idea to create this blog*. She encouraged readers to stop writing gratitude lists and instead write thank you notes to individual people.

I hope that any reader might continue on this journey with me, and I hope I continue this journey myself. We'll see where this takes us.

Be kind,

soniccat

*Kristen's article: https://www.gottman.com/blog/stop-creating-gratitude-lists-and-do-this-instead/