Thursday, November 9, 2017

Daily Kindness: 365 Days of Compassion

If there's one thing I've learned this year, it's that National Geographic has some GREAT books.


Lead your best year yet through 365 days of kindness. 
With enriching quotes from celebrated luminaries and striking National Geographic photography, each page of this moving book will inspire you to live with sincerity, compassion, and benevolence. Each month, you'll practice virtues like patience, respect, and generosity that will focus your mind and heart, creating fulfillment and contentment. Both inviting and motivating, Daily Kindness invites you to reflect on life's big and small moments, providing a way to embrace new ideas--and enrich your life every day of the year.

I think I've done reviews for maybe four or five books by National Geographic this year and every single one of them have been really interesting and books that I would gift anyone. I chose this one because in the last year I've also learned that people are kind. Everyone has the capacity to be kind every day, all day, and sometimes the large gestures aren't everything. Simple gestures that are meaningless to you are potentially big things that can turn things around for someone else.

This book is small but mighty. It might have a page for every day of the year, but it's not a large book and works perfectly as something to put on a table in your house, office, waiting room, gift it, so many uses. The photos are what you've come to expect from National Geographic, they are so perfect they almost don't seem real. I wanted to share just a few with you that were kind of important to me. Naturally, the one for my birthday, March 10, was interesting: "The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is. Desiderius Erasmus". The one for Jackson's birthday reads, "Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. -Lao-Tzu". Um, if you've been following my personal story this last year, you can see why that one was especially profound. But let us share the one from Lucy's birthday because dammit if it doesn't sum her beginnings up: "Beautiful things are difficult. -Plato".

Sigh.

To be fair I didn't read this book cover to cover, I jumped around to dates that mean something to me but I spent a couple of days getting to every page. Some were sweet, some were profound, some were reminders, and some were punches to the gut. They were all good. Honestly? I know a few people who are in the struggle with me trying to recover from our trauma and this is something I'm going to gift them. One the days I was particularly low, reading a few of these pages were reminders for me to keep going. Keep trying. To just keep swimming. So if you know someone who is maybe stuck in a rough patch of life, this might be a nice gift for them with a few self care items, just to say you get it and it's going to be OK. Those are the best gifts.

You can find this book for sale on the National Geographic website, but I invite you to look at their other books because I had no idea how many great ones they put out. I've really enjoyed all of the ones I've read so far. (If you're looking for a Christmas gift for me, I'd like any of the National Parks books.) You can also find this book on Amazon.

2 comments:

Ruth said...

This sounds like a good one. Thanks!

Heather J @ TLC Book Tours said...

I love all the National Geographic books - they are so gorgeous!

Thanks for being a part of the tour.