How to be nice

So I have found myself circling around, dragged into, and kicking the tires on this topic for a long time.  We have a lot of useless information out there, and that is both compelling me to write this and my justifying my desire to putting the totally obvious out there.

Here is a "How-to" on being kind.  Emily-style. 

1.  Listen.

2. Be considerate.

3. Act with love.

I am constantly reminding myself of these supremely simple and basic instructions.  This list could be longer.  There could be elaborate passages, examples, or even a long long list of instructions that start with the word "Don't".  But most of the instructions would fall under one of the three above.

In your world today, there will be plenty of opportunities to be not-nice.  Nice actions can lead a person to be unappreciated or railroaded.  There is a danger to being nice.  It's harder to be nice.  I watch my 6 year old, with ideas bursting out of her brain, and recognize that feeling in myself.  "It's hard to listen when I have so much to SAY!!"  Times when I want to run a constant babble dialogue of every thought or thought-whisper in my head.  But, when you can slow those firecracker moments of IMPORTANT things to say down, and listen to another person so that they actually feel heard, you can start to walk down a connected, rewarding path.  You will save yourself some time and confusion.  And, you may also be helped by helping that person.

But I digress.  There is a lot out there.  Tweets linked to vines linked to insta-awesome-moments linked to MLB feed linked to pin pin pinnering joy.  But if you take a moment, look up from your own awesome tornado and are nice to another person, you might find life is a bit better.  Or you can at least feel some pride, some smug, some peace in a life that is fiber-optically darting.

I double dog dare you.

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