insideKENT Magazine Issue 66 - September 2017 | Page 107

MORE FOCUSED YOU = MORE MOTIVATED YOU = HAPPIER YOU = HAPPIER EVERYONE ELSE AROUND YOU feel the road outside your child’s school needs a lower speed limit, write to the council and your local MP; if you’re outraged by the government’s treatment of the refugee crisis, stage a march or mass meeting and call them out on it. Turn your mental complaints into tweets, Facebook posts, forums, letters and meetings in a measured and pro-active manner and you’ll find your voice and actions have the capacity to make a profound impact on the topics that niggle you. Be Kind Sounds simple. Is simple. You might think karma’s a load of airy-fairy nonsense, but thousands of years of philosophical thinking would disagree: what you put out into the world is what you get back. If someone irks you and you lose your rag, you’ll irk them and likely irk the person who they go on to tell; it’s a whole chain of unnecessary irking that can be stopped short if you take a step back and assess if the situation is really worth all the aggravation. Smiling at a stranger, carrying someone’s bags who’s clearly struggling, or being patient with the shopper in front of you who’s taking an age to pack their shopping are all small, simple acts of kindness; practice them whenever you can and you’ll think and feel better. 107