There are few things that are easier and more rewarding in life than pure, simple kindness. Kind acts have the power to brighten up drab days, defuse tense situations and bring smiles to peoples’ faces. On top of this, by approaching life with a general attitude of kindness, you’ll find open doors of opportunity wherever you go; people will be eager to offer help, and they’ll even go out of their way to do so; it might even lead to fantastic friends and relationships you’d never have made otherwise! Truly, there’s no limit to the amount of good a kind attitude can do.

How is kindness so powerful? And why should you care?

It’s Infectious… in a Good Way

You’d probably want to avoid anything that’s infectious most of the time, but kindness is one of the few exceptions. When you approach life with a smile, you act as a beacon of warmth for other people, whether they interact with you directly or not. They’ll become emboldened to act with kindness themselves, smiling, displaying generosity and acting with a genuine warmth in everything they do. Over time (and it’s really not much time at all), countless people will be touched by the inspiring glow of your kindness. Your kindhearted words and actions will spread and impact dozens upon dozens of people; you’ll have started a chain reaction that makes the world a nicer, friendlier place to be. Not bad from a few kind words and selfless gestures, eh?

It Makes Life More Fulfilling

When you project a mindset of kindness into the world, it has a funny way of changing how you perceive life in general. By choosing to engage with your kind thoughts, and by disregarding your pessimistic ones, your brain learns to naturally filter out the fog of negativity. You’ll become more attuned to the good things in life, and those minor nuisances that so easily dominate your thoughts will fade into irrelevance. Sure, kindness may start out as a conscious choice, but eventually your brain will see it as the norm: it’ll default to a state of positivity. In that mindset, the world will be a brighter place; bad things won’t keep you down for long, and good things will stay with you for an eternity.

It’s Magnetic

Make no mistake, kindness isn't going to have you becoming a walking home for fridge magnets; we don’t mean THAT kind of magnetic. Rather, kindness makes people want to spend time around you. It gives you a kind of aura, a charisma, that can’t be faked or achieved with any amount of training. It’s one of the facts of life: people are attracted to kindness. By being kind, people will want you in their company.

Kindness isn’t hard, but it can be incredibly powerful. Try spending some time channeling kindness in your day-to-day actions and see how it feels. How do people react? How does it change your experience of the world? You might be surprised.