Wan of a Kind V2.0

On a recent Sunday afternoon, my friend Teng Lit and I joined up with a group of Japanese residents who called themselves the Green Bird.  Green Bird, according to their website , is a Non-Profit Organization founded in Harajku and Omote-sando.  Their motto is “A clean town also makes people’s hearts and minds cleaned.”  Their primary activity is trash-picking “to clean the towns we live and love.” Junko, a young Japanese businesswoman, is the leader of the group. Norie, a Japanese volunteer at our Kindness Gallery, introduced us.  There were 6 other Green Birds all ready to don on the green vest and gloves.  Armed with a litter-picker and litterbags, we fanned out into Little India for 90 minutes. We returned with our bags full of litter. Along the way, we were looked upon with curiosity and amazement.  A few stopped to find out who we are, and I never failed to tell them that foreigners are helping us to keep Singapore clean, ending with a question...

One of my goals when I first took on this role a little more than 2 years ago is to raise public awareness of kindness and the need to be kinder. I had this vision that if we could implant kindness in the public consciousness, we will create a destiny where kindness becomes a way of life. In thinking this way, I am influenced by Mahatma Gandhi who said, “Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.” Today I am gratified to note that we are more aware of kindness and graciousness than ever before. More people are talking and writing about it in various media. I take it that more people resonate with it because they believe in it, and are thinking about it. Take the last 3 days (August 5-7) for instance. The following are just a sampling of the buzz about Kindness and Graciousness in our newspapers. Mo...