World Kindness Day

World Kindness Day is a relatively young holiday, but very quickly gaining popularity all over the world. World Kindness Day began its countdown on November 13, 1998; the opening of an international conference on issues of kindness was scheduled for this autumn date. Representatives of the countries of the New and Old World gathered in Japan, where the World Kindness Movement was created a year earlier. The main tenets of the movement are set out in the Declaration of Kindness. This is an official document that addresses people from all corners of the Earth and raises the question of an urgent global problem, expressed in an acute shortage of such a natural quality for humans as kindness. In the pursuit of success, in building a career, society forgets about the humanity of relationships. From a very young age, children are taught to compete, expressed in the pursuit of superiority, using others. Kindness is considered a weakness. The concepts of mutual assistance, friendly disposition, and the beauty of good deeds are being squeezed out of the mass consciousness. As a symbol of World Kindness Day, the artist from France Orel proposed an image of an open heart. This is exactly how the organizers of the movement propose to communicate with each other: with open hearts, without hidden thoughts, with a desire to do good. Interestingly, scientists confirm the benefits of doing good deeds for improving health. Scientific experiments have found that good-natured people live longer and experience greater pleasure from the years they live. Emotional elation accompanies the awareness of the opportunity to be useful, causing the production of serotonin, a hormone that can significantly lift your mood. You can become a like-minded person in this movement using the Internet, where organizers share their experiences and inform about ongoing actions around the world. Celebration events include a wide variety of activities. Sometimes these are large-scale events to help those in need. But more often these are small acts that you can do on your own, for example, saying pleasant compliments, presenting a flower, offering a hug, feeding a stray animal, and so on. In 2009, Kindness Day was held for the first time in Moscow, where participants joined hands and formed a huge circle, showing their solidarity and involvement in the global kindness movement. Gradually, this tradition is gaining momentum, involving more and more cities and open hearts to participate.