The Beatles, one of the most beloved bands of all time, said love 613 times in their songs. Cuddling releases a chemical in your body that promotes healing. Blind people smile despite never having seen someone smile before.

Clearly we were created for kindness. If you look at humanity as a whole, we are often naturally inclined to be helpful and encouraging to one another. Time and time again, it’s been shown that by favoring a loving attitude toward others, the world is made a better place for all to live in. So often, though, we get caught up in our own worlds of deadlines and stress and fail to see beyond our bubble, neglecting to consider how our actions and attitude will affect others. I’m as guilty of this as anybody. Sometimes, we need a reminder that we truly were made to love. That’s where programs and movements like 26 Acts of Kindness come in.

I cannot rave enough about 26 Acts of Kindness. I am a firm believer that any small act showing consideration for another makes an impact, weaving itself into the fabric of the world, combatting the strands of negativity that have been planted. As such, encouraging students to do something as small as smile at someone changes the environment we live in. Suddenly, students are taken out of their short-sighted mindset of self-reliance and forced to consider the much more important bigger picture.

While I loved the 26 Acts of Kindness concept, the program has concluded. That’s why I’m here to encourage you to keep it up. We shouldn’t need blatant reminders to be kind. It is our responsibility as members of the human race to remind ourselves. Not just on designated days, but every day. In the morning, before you interact with anybody, we all need to stop and contemplate. Contemplate an intentional act we are going to do for the day, something we’ve planned with the direct goal of putting a smile on someone else’s face. Contemplate our attitude toward others for the day. Are we going to treat them as annoyance, interfering with our own little world, or are we going to allow our view to expand, recognize that everyone has something to offer? Lastly, we need to contemplate our motivation. Why you should be nice to others. Aside from bias. Frankly, I don’t care whether or not you like a person, that does not mean they don’t need kindness as much as anyone else. In fact, you’d probably be surprised how much you have in common. If you have a reason for your actions, it’ll be easier to be consistent.

So, WS, be kind to one another. Don’t limit loving your fellow humans to a window designated by a school program. Obviously we’ll all slip up in our attempts to do so, but just think how much our community could improve if we all just tried.