I think a fitting way to recognize the importance of this date is to talk about Becoming Kinder. How we can all do things in our life to become kinder to others and more tolerant of other people’s ideas.

How to Be Kinder: 11 Fine Tips

Here are some suggestions on how to start the process to becoming a kinder person from the positivity blog:

1. Be grateful for what you got. It’s very easy to take yourself, your life and the people around you for granted. Avoid that by using two minutes from time to time for reflecting on what you can be grateful for. Or write it down each day in a gratitude journal.
2. Express it. Don’t hold in what you are grateful for. Say it. It may be that you are happy to have brought an umbrella on a rainy day. Or just a small thing such as saying thanks to someone for holding your books for a minute. But even such small expressions of gratitude can make your or someone else’s day better.
3. Minimize judgments. No one likes to be judged. And the more you judge people the more you tend to judge yourself. So it’s a lose-lose situation.
4. Take it easy with the criticism. Constructive criticism has its place. But too much of that or criticism that won’t help anyone just makes people feel and perform worse. Try encouraging them instead. It makes work and the people involved – including you – easier to deal with and more fun.
5. Try to understand the other side. It’s easy to stick to your point of view. But you can gain powerful insights about the other person and yourself too by trying to understand their point of view. This also tends to decrease harshness and negativity and can make it easier to reach an understanding where both parties feel more satisfied with the solution.
6. Make positive observations about people. This is pretty similar to being grateful for what you got but a habit I like to keep in mind and use. Replace the habit of spotting the things that annoy you about people with one where you make small or big positive observations about them. It could be their great sense of style when it comes to shoes, how they always make you laugh when you need it or simply that they are always on time. Be sure to tell them that.
7. Remember the small and kind gestures. Let someone in into your lane while driving your car. And hold up the door for the next person.
8. Remind yourself. It’s easy to forget. Use whiteboards, your cell phone, post-its and other reminders in your daily environment.
9. Awash yourself in the positive memories of the times when you were kind. When you remind yourself how good it felt to be kind and how you helped someone out and made them feel good too it becomes easier and easier to stay kind instead of questioning the habit.
10. Take the smarter and higher road. Don’t be someone the people can walk all over, set boundaries and say no when needed. But recognize that unnecessary conflicts just waste your time and energy. And that some people are so addicted to the drama and conflicts that you will never win or reach an understanding between the two of you. There are more fun and good things to spend time on in your life. So try to reach an understanding in a kind sort of way. But if it doesn’t work then remove yourself from getting drawn into their conflicts and make the day better for both you and possibly them.
11. Be kind to yourself. It’s OK and something that a lot of people don’t do enough. And it seeps over into your world and how you treat others just like how being kind to others seeps back into how you treat yourself.

You really are as good as your own thoughts and others will only treat you as well as you treat yourself.  So start with being kind to yourself and recognize all the wonderful things you have right now, today.

I love the thought around Be Here Now. You have to live in the moment, in the day. What do you have in your life today to celebrate? Stop worrying about yesterday and hoping for things to come tomorrow. Most of us have all we need around us right now if we stop to think about it.  When you start looking at things in that way, you start to see the world differently and it opens up the opportunities to be kinder. But, it starts with you! 

We can all do our part to promote kindness and tolerance in our community as a way to remember the tragedy of September 11. I think its a very fitting way to honor the many heroes that  lost their lives for a senseless act of hate and it’s the kind of action that makes us all better.