On Valentine’s Day, a Reminder to Spread Kindness

Simple acts of kindness and respect can brighten someone’s day in a powerful way.

Love is often expressed through everyday interactions rather than grand gestures. Halfpoint/Shutterstock

As legendary songwriter Burt Bacharach famously put it, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” As Valentine’s Day approaches, what better way to celebrate than to challenge ourselves to spread more love wherever and whenever we can?

Love isn’t just a romantic sentiment. It can be shared with everyone we encounter—family, friends, neighbors, strangers, and even those with whom we disagree. Love is a choice we make, an intentional action we can take, and a habit of mind we can foster. Here are a few simple ways to spread more love in your everyday life.

Spread Kindness

It can be easy to get wrapped up in our own interests, responsibilities, and the demands of daily life. What if, despite those challenges, we carved out a little bandwidth to spread kindness to others?

When you are kind, you see others as kindred—like family. You recognize that we are all connected and that deep down, it is our nature to care for one another.

Offering kindness to others can be as simple as smiling more, using good manners, listening well in conversation, giving others the benefit of the doubt, and considering the needs of others as you go about your day. You might deliver your spouse his or her morning coffee unsolicited, engage in warm conversation with a store clerk to brighten his or her day, bake a sweet treat to share with your neighbors, say “Hello” to strangers who pass you by, or check in on an elderly acquaintance who might appreciate a friendly chat.

Offer Respect

When you respect others, you dignify them, hold them in high regard, consider them, and appreciate them for who they are.

You can practice showing respect by acknowledging someone’s skills, talents, or contributions. You can remember details about someone’s life or things that person has shared with you in the past. You can acknowledge someone at any moment with a compliment or a thank-you. You can assume another’s good intentions and respect someone else’s opinions or ways of doing things.

You don’t have to agree with someone in order to offer him respect. You can honor another person’s dignity even when you disagree.

Be Helpful

To help someone else is a loving act. When you help, you uplift, support, and uphold another by giving your time, energy, and care. Who can you help? As you go about your day, open your mind and heart to a willingness to help. When you look for opportunities to help others, to add value, to lighten someone else’s load—you might be surprised how much help you’re able to give.

Be Loving

To spread love, you can actively foster your own loving heart. You can pray for others; offer forgiveness to others; let go of envy, jealousy, and resentment; refrain from judging others; strengthen your compassion for others; try to put yourself in others’ shoes; and truly wish others well. We can all increase our capacity for love.

The thing about love is that the more you put out into the world, the more love comes back to you. This Valentine’s Day—and beyond—spread the love.