Cultivating Kindness & Curiosity

My mother in law was kind enough to get me a calendar for Christmas that features daily statements about kindness. This one hits home today,

Everyone is someone's child

I try very hard to remember this when I have the urge to send hate mail to Michael Vick. I am also working on practicing this when I get snarky iTunes reviews. Yes, I saw a review that was critical of how I pronounced "crochet". Immediately, I went off to sleuth around and to find this person on Ravelry, and then prepare a response..but then..I waited...and waited...

And the idea of "less judgement, more curiosity" came to me, and then the idea of "kindness".

I am curious that someone could so confidently have a reaction and label my pronunciation of "crotchet" to mean that the user (me) doesn't know how to correctly pronounce the word.

I am curious about that....how it is that people can make up their minds so confidently with little background information?

I am aware that I do this too. I do this with things I observe, ideas that I have, issues that I cannot be neutral on.

I've started telling the people that I work with that I am inherently human and inherently curious. I like curiosity, I think it keeps me teachable.

So dear readers, stalkers, snarkers, and oh-so-patient family members, what will you do today to foster curiosity and kindness?