I Want to be that Person

Five Minute Friday Prompt:  Welcome

Grass and Blue Sky

I want to be someone who always meets and greets and makes others feel welcome.  I want to have a home where when you enter, you feel at home.   Welcome!  It Is a state of being.  It is the comfort you experience when you are with someone who allows you to be yourself, to let your hair down, to let go of pretenses.   That is who I want to be.

Warm and Snuggly

Welcome.  As I close my eyes,  I see the door opening and the blanket strewn across the couch calling to me – welcome.  As I cuddle up in that blanket, I see a hand reaching out to me with a cup of hot apple cider and a smile on the greeter’s face.  Welcome.   I feel welcome and I think, “I want to be that person.”

Hot Apple Cider

I want to meet and greet and be a warm blanket, not a wet blanket, an open door, not a slammed door, a hot cup of cider, not a lukewarm sour drink.  I want to offer a smile and a sense of comfort and wellbeing.  Welcome.

Kindness revisted - Five Minute Friday

Five Minute Friday at http://thegypsymama.com/category/five-minute-friday/ 

I can’t seem to get the definition of kindness out of my mind.  The definition I found said kindness was being friendly, generous, and considerate.  It seems to me that that is backward.  One might not be especially friendly and yet not be unkind.  One can be not necessarily generous and still not be unkind.  However, it is difficult not to be considerate without simultaneously being unkind.  One might have to go out of one’s way to be friendly and generous, but being considerate ought to be just a product of our regular dealings with one another.  When you are done eating, put your own dish in the dishwasher instead of leaving it on the table.  As you get back from the pool or taking a shower, hang up your towel instead of leaving it on the floor for someone else to pick up.  Use words like please and thank you.  These are just basics of being considerate and to be otherwise is inconsiderate and unkind.  

Simple Acts of Kindness

A friend gave me a copy of the Good Housekeeping, July 2012 issue when he was done with it.  Right away an article listed on the cover caught my eye, “Little Acts of Kindness, that will change your life.”  Since our typical diet of news is replete with the negative happenings around us, I always appreciate articles like this that add more nourishing energy to our psyche.  Beginning with a quote by Winston Churchill, “We make a living by what we get.  We make a life by what we give,”  author Katy McColl discusses some of the fruitful benefits of giving for the giver, as she offers plenty of ideas on simple acts that any of us can implement to give a boost to our lives. 

My children seem to come up with similar simple wisdom to Churchill.   My son, Kipp, observed recently, “Do you know that there are billions of people in the world, Mom?  Why is it with billions of people in the world and so much time in our lives, that we let little things in little moments by just a few people cause us so much grief?”