RESOLUTIONS: The world needs kindness

Warning: New Year’s resolutions are coming!

The day after Christmas, I opened social media and various shopping applications, and was flooded with advertisements for athletic wear, cosmetic surgery, gym memberships, cosmetics, expensive skincare regimens, and diet supplements promising a “New Year, New You.”

Friends, this is your reminder that you are enough. Your body as it is does not add to nor take away from your value as a valid, worthwhile person.

Each year, I – along with others – have followed along with the tradition of setting unrealistic goals for our New Year’s resolutions, only to be disappointed shortly after because we failed to plan and follow through with the work required for change.

Self-esteem would suffer, and we would feel motivated to purchase the products advertised to help reach goals we never truly desired. Sure, we all want to feel and look more attractive. We want swimsuit ready bodies, to appear trim and toned, to have a better and undoubtedly more tan complexion, and wanted the confidence to match.

That is where the capitalist market comes in: Sell products that make promises that will not be delivered. We feel bad about our very human qualities, and then we try to soothe ourselves by buying more things we do not need to try to look or feel better about ourselves.

I decided this year I wanted to invest in something more than superficial: rather than being thinner, or more toned, or better looking, I am going to invest in myself by investing in the world I live in.

What can I do to make the world a better place for myself and those I love? What can I be that will serve others? The answer was easy: I can be kind. I can be more patient and tolerant with those I do not understand, more generous to projects that benefit my community, I can offer a smile, a helping hand, a sure voice in an uncertain world. I can give of my hands and heart and mind while I still have the ability to contribute labor, good deeds, innovative ideas, and kindness to a world that very much needs more.

Specifically, I can speak up when I see injustice, I can pick up litter when I happen by it, I can donate time and money to projects that rescue animals or feed the hungry or help someone in need. I can learn about things I do not understand. I can be a friendly face in a see of impartiality. Small things often become big things, much as a pebble thrown into a pond creates ripples throughout the whole body of water.

The world needs kindness more than another pretty face or trim physique or impulse purchase. I know the change begins with and within me. I choose to invest in the community I live in and the people I know by simple acts of kindness. I know that trying to be better today than I was yesterday not only helps me, but helps others.

What can you do for yourself and others in the New Year?

Sarah Mears-Ivy brings 12 years of experience in the field of human sciences and advocacy.