Delight in the Act of Kindness

Day 22: Delight in the Act of Kindness

“The soul of sweet delight, can never be defiled.” – William Blake

“The soul of sweet delight,” what a beautiful way to describe a soul, a person, a spirit or the essence of someone. Imagine what an amazing world we could create if we all walked around with souls of sweet delight. Souls that took a high degree of pleasure, enjoyment and joy in ourselves and brought that same delight and joy to the rest of the world. Could we then be defiled? I think not! Taking pleasure in providing delight to ourselves and others is a true act of kindness.

If we have that feeling of delight in our soul, then no one could knock us off our center, or offend us, right?. That of course is the ideal, to never be knocked off our center and remain kind in the face of aggressive or hateful behavior.

1,2 &3:

Kindness to Self, Kindness to Others & Kindness to Strangers:

Last night, I was at a concert and I was speaking to my friend a little louder than I was aware of and a woman behind me shouted “Shut Up!” At first I did not get that she was speaking to us. After a few seconds, I turned around to find the source of the foul comment. She looked straight ahead and ignored my curious look, but nonetheless, I understood that she was in fact speaking to us. She was very effective in her choice of communication because I was shocked and left speechless. I looked at my friend, and for a moment I found myself offended, and beginning to head down a road of indulging in feelings of self righteousness. Thankfully, my friend gently suggested that we leave our seats and finish our conversation in the lobby. On our way out, I realized that speaking during a concert was probably not the kindest thing I could have been doing. Of course this woman could have asked me to be quiet in a much more polite manner and I would have been happy to oblige. I also, could have spent the next several minutes or more talking about the incident with my friend and wasting our time and sense of delight or I could choose to let it go and enjoy the person I was with. I chose the latter, I chose delight over defilement. I chose kindness.

4. Kindness to Our Planet:

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” – John Muir

Jennifer Palazzo

Photo Courtesy of FreeImages.com/bosontwerp