{"id":5373,"date":"2018-02-13T14:47:47","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T19:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/?p=5373"},"modified":"2018-10-09T16:57:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T20:57:29","slug":"365162-being-kind-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365162-being-kind-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"365+#162:\u00a0A Kinder Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Over the past 8 years rather than just giving something up for Lent I\u2019ve tried to do something pro-active to make me a better, more loving person. This has included:\"\"<\/a>
\n2010-Giving away one category of possessions a day
\n2011-Continuing to give stuff away including intangibles
\n2012-Eating on a Food Stamp budget\"\"<\/a>
\n2013-Creating less waste
\n2014-Decluttering hidden stuff by pruning a Drawer-a-Day<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>2015-Trying to buy nothing other than food
\n2016-Clearing paper clutter from my desk and obsolete paper from file cabinets
\n2017-Cleaning my mind and heart of anger, i.e. Political Conversations<\/p>\n

Although my home and heart certainly still have room for more pruning, I\u2019ve been searching for my next step. Lent is a good time to take stock of who I am, how I can become a better human, and start practices that that can become ongoing habits of virtue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My decision for 2018: Be Kind<\/strong>
\nThis may sound like a fluffy, general, be nice kind of resolution but it stemmed from my self-awareness that I can be overly judgmental, a tightwad, and care too much about what people think of me. Focusing on others<\/strong> is a growing edge I want to foster. I was also prompted by a 10 year old refrigerator note to myself: “BE KIND: Don\u2019t be a Jerk. Honor the Absent, Give the Benefit of the Doubt.” It\u2019s a nice idea, but I hadn\u2019t made much progress toward these ideals.<\/p>\n

THE PROBLEM:<\/strong>
\nThe challenge will be to go beyond just general, feel good, niceness. I knew I needed to make this goal more deliberate, conscious, and systematic. I want to bring a heightened consciousness to what might initially seem like a very meek goal – just be kind.<\/p>\n

THE PLAN:<\/strong> To each day intentionally do something specific, and go out of my way, to be kind:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. To another human being<\/strong>. This will probably include continuing to give stuff away to people who need it, but will also include acts of verbal kindness to those I meet in my daily travels (stores, meetings, in traffic, etc.) I already have a few items that I plan to give away, but instead of just waiting for Viet Vets<\/a><\/span>\u00a0to pick up my miscellaneous stuff, I plan to actually take my donations to a person or place that can use it. I also plan on finding ways to compliment another, but more importantly to bite my tongue when tempted to criticize or complain about a person in their absence.<\/li>\n
  2. To planet earth<\/strong>. This will probably include more recycling, paying attention to the animals and plant life around me, and generally choosing something tangible that I can do to improve our common home beyond what I normally do. Should involvement with our local Pachamama Alliance<\/a><\/span> environmental group count?<\/li>\n
  3. To myself<\/strong>. On Sundays I’ll probably take a rest and find something to do that renews my spirit. Do you think it would be OK to ventilate about life\u2019s frustrations and maybe even some people. \ud83d\ude42<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    HOLDING MYSELF ACCOUNTABLE<\/strong>
    \nIn order to avoid Being Kind<\/em> just ending up as a pleasant platitude that doesn\u2019t really challenge and transform my life, I am committing to write a specific action plan in my journal each morning. The next morning I will note whether I accomplished my action (or inaction in the case of complaining about someone). If I didn\u2019t do my planned action was I able to find a substitute? Of course knowing that I\u2019ll be telling you all about my successes and admitting my failures will also keep me motivated. (My husband also calls me to honesty.)<\/p>\n

    TAKE AWAY<\/strong>: I’m thinking that making a specific daily decision is the key to developing an ongoing attitude and habit of kindness, not just an occasional being nice. What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Over the past 8 years rather than just giving something up for Lent I\u2019ve tried to do something pro-active to make me a better, more loving person. This has included: 2010-Giving away one category of possessions a day 2011-Continuing to give stuff away including intangibles 2012-Eating on a Food Stamp budget 2013-Creating less waste 2014-Decluttering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[30,29,17],"class_list":["post-5373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-being-kind","tag-faith","tag-intangibles","tag-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5373"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5409,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5373\/revisions\/5409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}