Once again, I am reading the newest book by Brene Brown – “Atlas of the Heart.” I stumbled upon this book while I was browsing my local bookstore with my nieces. As I was standing there checking out, I saw on display, under “new arrivals” a book by Brene Brown. I didn’t care what it was, because I love Brene Brown so much, I knew I wanted to buy it.

This is a book all about different emotions, but is separated into different categories of feelings or situations we find ourselves in. It breaks down the feelings behind the feeling, when we’re sorting through something in life such as “when we’re hurting,” we’re feeling things such as anguish, hopelessness, despair, sadness, grief, and breaks down each emotion and how it differs from the other similar feelings. It is titled “Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.”

In the “regret” section, she quoted George Saunders from his speech at a Syracuse University Graduation “What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded…Sensibly. Reservedly. Mildy.”

That really caused me to pause, and reflect.

Try to picture yourself, at the end of your life, reflecting back on your moments of regret. Do you regret not taking that risk, not being vulnerable and putting yourself out there because you were scared and lacked confidence? Not daring to be brave and trying something new, to protect yourself from failing and risking embarrassment? Do you regret not trying something you know you could have achieved or enjoyed? What if you would have just went for it? What’s the worst that could have happened- you failed? OK, so you built character, you learned from it. You may have had a bruised ego, for like, a second. Then moved forward. You probably went on to do better than you would have, had you not tried and failed to begin with. Trying and failing helps us grow. Would you regret it if you stood idly by while someone else was picked on, and didn’t stand up for them- didn’t put yourself out there to help comfort or build that person up, when you know you could have? That is something to regret. That is what George Saunders is talking about.

Life is much better when you go out of your way to show kindness to someone else. Don’t look or ask for recognition for it either. You don’t need to tell someone else, or post it on social media, looking for people to “like” it or tell you “good job!” or what a good person you are. Skip that. Just do good, when you can, because you can. Feel good about yourself from an internal source, not from external validation. Trust that eventually, somewhere in the world, someday, it will carry forward and pay off, if you need to believe that in order to do it. Putting good out into the world actually will help make the world a better place. I whole heartedly believe in the ripple effect. In “paying it forward,” if you will. And you will feel better about yourself if you always make the choice that is “good,” not just for you, but you choose what is “right, and fair.”

I think when you live your life with integrity and morals, and with less judgement, you naturally build better self esteem. You don’t live in a “shame” state as much. You don’t feel as bad about yourself for being unkind, or lying or cheating, etc. and can move forward feeling good about your choices, which in turn helps you make more good choices. When we are feeling bad about ourselves, we make poor decisions to comfort ourselves sometimes, right? I know I have.