Today, my commute started with a sign saying ‘Smiles are contagious, so keep smiling’ (and I didn’t even eye-roll). I then listened to a meditation app that encouraged me to direct rays of ‘may you be happy’ sunshine at random passengers. I lunched with my friend Harriet, who is devoting her Saturdays to helping teenagers prepare for job interviews (a few years back, Harriet would spend Saturdays in bed). 

I liked an image on Instagram of a ‘Take a coat if you’re cold’ donation rack. I shared a ‘Kindness. It doesn’t cost a damn thing. Sprinkle that sh*t everywhere’ meme – the same meme that, in 2014, I would have snarled at it. What’s happened to me? What’s happened to all of us?!

Kindfulness is 2018’s mindfulness, we’re told, with the pioneer of the trend – a British Buddhist monk by the name of Ajahn Brahm – giving talks at Google and Facebook’s offices, with a slew of books on the horizon. With mindfulness, we’re taught to be softer and kinder to ourselves, whereas kindfulness is about turning this inside-out and directing it at others and the world at large.

There are countless examples of people, individually and collectively, trying to bring a little kindness into other people’s lives.  At last week’s annual worldwide Random Acts of Kindness Week, kids were given ‘compliment card’ school projects and people were urged to become ‘Raktivists’ (Random Act of Kindness activists) by tucking ‘Great parking!’ notes under windscreen wipers, leaving money in vending machines or giving a stranger caught in a downpour your umbrella.

Trolling is down, ‘kind-ing’ is up. Katie Hopkins finally lost her MailOnline job while President Trump’s approval rating is at an all-time nadir. Today, being mean doesn’t pay. The philosopher Alain de Botton called the trend, “The long march  of kindness” adding, “We have become more and more sensitive to, and concerned about, the suffering of others.”

Why we should all try practicing ‘kindfulness’ this year