Jaime Thurston - Kindness – the Little Thing That Matters Most

Thorsons

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London SE1 9GF

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First published by Thorsons 2017

FIRST EDITION

Text Jaime Thurston 2017

Illustrations Debbie Powell 2017

Cover layout design HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Jaime Thurston asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN 9780008252847

Ebook Edition September 2017 ISBN 9780008252861

Version 2017-08-08

This book is incredibly inspirational. A feel-good, call-to-action to be kind!

David R. Hamilton, Ph.D., author and international speaker

Kindness is the foundation for a happier world. This wonderful book is packed with inspiring and practical ways that we can all help to spread more ripples of kindness and happiness in our daily lives. Highly recommended.

Dr Mark Williamson, director of Action for Happiness

To me kindness is giving selflessly. Its to give with no expectation. A smile, a helping hand, a warm gesture just because your heart desires to do a good deed for no other reason than to make someone happy. 52 Lives is amazing, selfless and truly wonderful.

Gemma Oaten, actor

Kindness is overflowing with inspiring messages to help us all remember the importance of being kind. Whether youre young or old, these are inspiring reminders of how we can make society better for all of us.

Bullying UK, part of Family Lives

I was always bought up to show loving kindness towards others. To help others, like 52 Lives does, is a selfless act. It doesnt cost anything to be kind and it can mean so much a simple smile costs nothing.

Duncan James, singer from Blue, actor and presenter

In a world divided by terror and fear, I genuinely believe that kindness can bring us together. Jaime and the light she brings to this funny old planet is very much needed.

Emily Coxhead, founder of The Happy Newspaper

For my three kind little beating hearts, Abbey, Max and Joseph

And for Greig, my love and the kindest person I know

Contents

David R. Hamilton, Ph.D., author of The Five Side Effects of Kindness

Kindness is the glue that holds society together. It is the essence of beauty. It brings smiles to faces, lightens our burdens, creates friendships, transforms people and situations. It can make a day memorable. It can be the answer to someones prayers. This is how I see Jaime Thurstons work with 52 Lives. It is heart-warming to see how she makes a difference in so many peoples lives.

And I mean heart-warming in two ways. First, in the sense that it makes us feel uplifted and inspired. Second, in that observing or learning about kindness does create a warming sensation in the heart. Kindness produces oxytocin and nitric oxide, two substances that directly affect our arteries, softening them, dilating them, reducing blood pressure, clearing them of free radicals, and increasing blood flow to the heart.

Its part of what social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, calls elevation, which we feel when were being kind, receiving kindness, or witnessing kindness. This also inspires us to pay kindnesses forward. This in turn sets in motion the well-known ripple effect of kindness, where one act touches many more lives than just the original recipient.

We are wired to be kind. Its our deepest nature. We have kindness genes that are some of the oldest in the human genome, at over 500 million years young. Looking out for each other is human nature.

I hope this book warms you and may your kindnesses in turn warm the hearts of many others. Of the different talked-about ways of changing the world for the better, I believe that kindness carries our best hope.

Urgently needed rugs. That was the message that started everything. I was searching online for second-hand furniture, when I came across the plea for help. It was a Wanted ad placed by a woman who sounded desperate. I emailed her and was heartbroken by what I learned. She needed the rugs to cover her broken floor so her young children wouldnt cut their feet. She was a single mum who had fled a horrifying domestic situation and was starting all over again with nothing. I wanted to help her, and I was sure that if others knew about her, they would want to help, too. So I spread the word among my friends and family, and household goods soon started pouring in.

I delivered everything to her one afternoon piles of bedding, furniture, kitchenware, clothing, toys and some gift vouchers. I will never forget the look on her face when she opened the door. She was in complete shock that people she didnt even know would be willing to help her. This was a woman very much in need of kindness, and strangers helped her feel loved when she needed it the most.

I wanted to do more I wanted to do this every week. And so 52 Lives was born. It started life as a simple Facebook page I set up so my friends and family could help people, but over the weeks, months and years, it grew into a global community of people who wanted to spread kindness and help others.

Each week, we choose someone, somewhere in the world, in need of help, share their story on our website and social media pages, request what they need, and our supporters offer help. Its based on the premise that people are good and want to help one another and that lots of good people working together can achieve amazing things.

52 Lives helps anyone, from anywhere, with anything; our only criterion is that the person is in need of kindness. In the few years since 52 Lives began, we have changed peoples lives in such a wonderful variety of ways from buying teeth for a man in Alabama to building a sensory shed for a toddler in south London who was losing her sight, making video messages for a young boy being bullied, supplying wheelchairs to children in China and the UK, and sending a little girl and her grandmother on a holiday after the death of the girls mother.

Although we give people tangible help, the philosophy behind it goes much deeper than simply supplying goods or services. The people we help all say the same thing; that it wasnt the thing we gave them that changed their life, it was the kindness the fact that complete strangers cared about them. The people we help are going through quite difficult times and when youre in those situations, a little bit of kindness can make all the difference in the world.