You Just Wait and See
When do you start the holiday season? Do you mingle Jack-O-Lanterns with Christmas trees and menorahs? Or, maybe your household sunsets the holiday lights into storage at the dawn of Valentine’s Day. The National Retail Federation (NRF) identifies November 1 through December 31 as the official holiday season. But when every day in November felt like Black Friday, alllllll the holidays too easily blend into one. Brands even coined the month Black November. Maybe there’s comfort in knowing businesses acknowledge our blurred reality.
That comfort could be seen as an act of kindness. Amid retailers getting in the ‘black’, we noticed how one November day added ‘light’ to the month. November 13th marked World Kindness Day. What started as a day to spotlight communities that bridge differences with kindness has quietly impacted schools, workplaces, and homes since 1998.
World Kindness Day stands for more than one-off kindness. It extends beyond Krispy Kreme’s donut giveaway. (Although, we wish we were amongst the thousands of customers that each received a dozen glazed donuts. We do love us some donuts!) Krispy Kreme was on to something though. The brand’s motivation “to inspire and enable kindness to others” shows how easy it is to make kindness the norm. While F1 raced its Vegas course, several commemorative days ran their course: Veterans Day, Remembrance Day, Diwali. Whether it’s Election Day or Giving Tuesday, kindness should light up every day. Kindness is not niceness. It definitely is not weakness. Kindness counters the dark and adds light to the world we share. Without it, PinPoint couldn’t celebrate and honor ‘curiously empathic’ as a core value.
Kindness in Your World
Celebrating kindness also means we get to challenge the thinking behind countless “be kind to yourself” headlines. How might we be authentically kind to ourselves?
We love learning about how people choose to spend their time. We’ve observed how our Shared Voices community shows authentic kindness to themselves through an unexpected – sometimes polarizing! – way to spend time. Hobbies. Gaining consensus on an inclusive definition for “hobby” is itself a practice in kindness. According to Statista, cooking/baking, reading, and pets are the top three most popular hobbies in the US. But for some of us, putting a name to our hobbies is no small task. It takes authentic kindness to accept our hobby-jumping habits, that there is enjoyment to be found in trial, error, and trial again.
Hobby jumpers and hobby enthusiasts share one core goal. Everyone needs high-quality leisure time. Think about high-quality leisure as a research-backed evolution of what we otherwise know as recreation. High-quality leisure more closely represents our lifestyles. It permits our pursuits. The cringe of being asked “What are your hobbies?” kindly exits the high-quality leisure conversation.
You know high-quality leisure when you experience it. Look for the kind of moments that:
- Challenge your skills
- Get you moving
- Connect you to community
- Encourage you to reflect
When we can be kind to ourselves about the high-quality leisure time we need, we become more motivated to just go for it. Take the dance class at the studio you pass on your way to grab coffee. Sign-up for the woodworking session you keep hinting at. Experiment with new recipes that live in Pinterest but never make it to your grocery list. There is kindness in vuja de, that sensation of seeing something familiar with new light.
Ahead of National Hobby Month (in January!), we wonder: How do you hobby? Do you hobby? With early sunsets, incoming party invites, and tempting online shopping, can you hobby at this time of year? High quality leisure time is even kinder with an e-coffee, so let’s grab one together!