Kindness - Finding Ourselves and Leaving Our Greatest Legacy
"On Kindness", a self-help book by Lawrence J. Danks, suggests that kindness not only helps others, it can help us achieve our greatest potential, and enable us to leave our greatest legacy.
NJ (PRWEB) July 18, 2004 -- "On Kindness", a self-help book by Lawrence J. Danks, suggests that kindness not only helps others, it can help us achieve our greatest potential and enable us to leave our greatest legacy. The book includes the thoughts of many sage commentators on how to become kinder, and the transformative and lasting value it offers.
Walt Whitman once noted, "I am better than I thought. I did not know I held so much goodness." Danks says that this is something that can apply to all of us. He says, "We don't have to try to be somebody else. It can be helpful to use role models, but the best gifts we can give are those that are uniquely our own."
He relates an old tale about Joseph, a Jewish man, who goes to heaven and meets St. Peter. Joseph tells Peter, "Tell God I wish I had been more like Abraham and Moses." God told Peter, "Tell him I'm sorry he wasn't more like Joseph!"
Writer Charlotte Forten asked,"I wonder why it is I have this strange feeling of not living out myself?", feeling as if part of the life she should have been living was missing. The famed lecturer Joseph Campbell similarly remarked that the missing part of our lives is often the best part, and that we miss out on what we could have been, by not living the life we could have lived, "...our current life is always waiting to yield a greater story...Too many of us accept the sadness of inauthentic lives." Danks says one of the primary purposes of "On Kindness" is to encourage himself and others to authenticate their lives.
The author, who grew up in a funeral home, is a Business Administration professor in a New Jersey community college and former real estate school director. He says, "You are the prospective parent of your own fulfilled self." He encourages readers not to waste kindness opportunities that can lead to self-discovery and personal greatness, not necessarily on a national or international scale, but in their own families and communities. "Making a difference in some personally satisfying and helpful way, truly being yourself, helps us discover our own buried treasure," he says.
e.e. cummings noted that this is not an easy effort, "The hardest thing in the world is being yourself...There is no reason to rejoice for the man who would rather walk with the noise, than hear the voice." Danks notes that it is easy to have the pressures of daily life distract us from our fuller mission, but that we should strive to find ourselves, then be ourselves, by helping others through the constant opportunities we have in our personal and working lives.
He comments on several classic, turn of the century works on kindness which emphasize how kind thoughts provide the seeds for making a difference, because they lead to kind words and actions. "On Kindness" shares thoughts on kindness from a wide range of renowned sources including Mother Teresa,The Dalai Lama, George Foreman, Marcus Aurelius, Jimmy Carter, Pulitzer Prize winning author David Shipler, author of the New York Times best seller, "The Working Poor", and many others.
"On Kindness" provides encouragements for kindness and denotes some of the conflicts created with offering it. A full chapter is devoted to "Opportunities for Kindness" including such topics as: kindness made simple, how to be there for those who are sick, grieving or dying, lending an ear, broadcasting a need, and over two dozen others.
Danks also relates many stories about how highly unexpected opportunities for kindness present themselves, based on unexpected, and sometimes tragic events, evidenced by the highly productive efforts of Katie Couric, John Walsh, the founding mothers who initiated Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and many other unforgettable incidents involving great personal losses and courage which have spawned countless kindnesses to others.
The book is not a religious book. Its principles are innately understood by people of faith or those having none. It is more broadly spiritual, with the emphasis on help leading to self-help. It offers many other poignant and touching stories of kindness which illustrate and underscore its universally applicable principles.
Chapter samples from "On Kindness" may be found at the website: www.onkindness.com.
Published by Helpful Media. ISBN 0-9755100-0-2. Copyright 2004. 144 pages. Cover price: $13.00
Available through Amazon.com.
Search under: On Kindness Danks
MBA - University of Missouri
BS - Seton Hall University
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