If you have a chance, take a moment to foster kindness. Look for the opportunity, tell yourself that you will elicit one act of kindness today. It doesn’t need to be complex, it doesn’t need to cost money, it doesn’t have to take up too much of your time. All you have to do is give an extra big piece of what we commonly refer to as your heart. That is the energy center within you that is the seat of your compassion.

You have to give it away though, away for free. No expectation of return. You have to come away with a deficit there, and you can’t have it filled by the person you were kind to. You can’t look to replace it either, you just have to live with it missing. If the opportunity comes up again you should do it over, take another piece, and give it away. Spend more time than before to listen, or help, or stand beside somebody, or speak up, or to take the load off someone. Leave that experience with less than you came. If you feel that you can’t show compassion then who will? And if they can, why can’t you?

The answer to that question lays in the repeated process of giving your heart away. As you leave it with others, as you interject compassion into the world, you will discover that you regenerate. You rejuvenate. If you happen to receive kindness from another, you discover that it doesn’t go to replace the pieces you have given away, it exponentially increases your potential to give. Like an apple tree dropping fruit that seeds and grows more trees, it increases the orchard’s yield – and we are the orchard, not the tree.

If you find yourself in a situation that pulls more of your heart than you feel you can give, a situation that scares you because the weight of its sadness, or the weight of the need is seemingly so great- then be scared, but be braver than your fears, and you will light a way through the darkness. Even if you are not followed out, the way will be lit, and others will find the way.