Book Review: Kind is the New Classy

I have been a Candace Cameron (now Bure) fan for a long time, since I was a child watching Full House, which is my all time favorite television show. Now there is Fuller House and lots of Hallmark movies. I like to watch when she live tweets her Christmas movie. She gives a scarf away that she wore during the movie during the live tweeting - fun fact.

I have read some of her other books - Balancing It All, Reshaping It All, and Dancing Through Life. There are two other ones about being stylish and a kid's book that I have not gotten around to reading yet.

This book was by far the most useful one of her books, in my opinion.  It really spoke to me.  With social media and mainstream media, it seems as if people have forgotten how to treat one another. I see people writing things that (I hope at least) they would never say in real life (not that it makes it any better) on social media.  People jump at every opportunity to argue. And the thing is - I never see that arguing ever changing anyone's mind. It just puts negativity out there into the world and wastes time that could be used being more productive like serving soup at the local soup kitchen, doing a beach clean up, reading to a child, or walking dogs at the animal shelter. Stop trying to convince others that you are right and just go out there and make the world a better place.

This book's content is what the world needs more of right now.

There is so much negativity and polarization out there. I do not know when kindness went out of style. It should not have ever happened. I do not know why people stopped treating others the way they wanted to be treated.

Kindness can bring the world together.

Candace gives real-life practical examples of things you can do in your life to make it a kinder place at the end of each chapter. You can use this as a discussion guide for a great book club. It only has 10 chapters, and they go quickly.  The whole book is a quick read. Start this in January and jumpstart yourself into a kinder year in 2020.

One big takeaway here is to respond to others with GRACE.

Do not assume ill-intent.  Give people the benefit of the doubt, and just because someone is unkind to you does not mean you have to treat them the same.

Respond with kindness, and you might change the outcome. Even if you do not, you do not have all that toxicity within you.

Let's make the world KIND and CLASSY.