I'm reading Les Miserables right now, and I love it. A whole crazy lot.
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| Les Miserables: Best story |
I already have loved the musical for years and years, but as I've been reading the book, I love how much depth Victor Hugo gave the characters. You get to see so much about the characters that you come to understand the motivations behind their actions, and even though many of the characters make some rather poor choices or are rather unkind themselves, you have a sort of empathy for the characters even in making those choices. You see why they make those choices. As I've been reading and thinking about the story, I've thought that it would be a little easier to be kind if we could see the motivations behind people's decisions in real life. However, I really don't feel like we do have this view. Maybe in some cases we do have a fairly clear view, but we are not the other person. How can we understand their point of view when we have all of our own life experiences shaping our view?
I feel like sometimes it feels hard to be kind when I'm mad with someone or maybe if I just don't even think about it and am in a bad mood or tired or something. But being unkind just leaves me grumpy and hurts people. Unkindness does not seem to help people realize that they've made a mistake or help them improve. Unkindness just seems to make people defensive or hurt. And in situations of anger, is that really my job in life to be making a judgement on someone and whether they deserve kindness? I don't think so. I've always been taught to be kind, and I have a personal mission to help people feel peace, hope, and love. Unkindness is not going to help me accomplish that goal.
I don't feel like I'm even conveying what I'd like to convey here, but this is what I feel: It is not my job to judge or be unkind. It is my job to be kind. It is my job to love. God will take care of the rest. I do not know what another person is going through right now or what a person's life has been like, even if I think I do. I'd rather be kind and leave people feeling at least the same as when I met them than be unkind and leave people feeling worse than when I met them. And some people really can seem to just dismiss unkind comments. However, why would I even take that chance.
Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin was one of my favorite apostles. I don't know if that's really what people should do, choose favorite apostles, but oh well, I did. I love him. He gave so many general conference talks on kindness.
I really love his talk The Virtue of Kindness. I would recommend that anyone read it. I love the way he teaches. When he was alive, I had a professor at BYU ask which talk was my favorite in general conference at that time, and I said Elder Wirthlin's. My professor was surprised. He said that he usually didn't feel like Elder Wirthlin's talks were the most interesting or exciting, but I loved them.
Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin taught said, "Who can tell what far-reaching impact we can have, if only we are kind?" I love this. We never know when it's a day when someone needs a kind word or a little bit of help. I want to be a little bit kinder. And more than that, since I know that I know how to be kind, I want to make sure I do things that help me be kind, like getting enough sleep. This is my plan.
