In limits, there is freedom. Creativity thrives within structure. Although we may picture true creativity as being a sort of “free for all,” the opposite is actually true. When we set boundaries, our children feel loved. The paradox of creative expansion is that the greatest freedom lies within safe boundaries. This applies to physical space as well. Creating safe havens where our children are allowed to dream, play, make a mess, and, yes, clean it up, we teach them respect for themselves and others, and the joy of a warm and enticing physical and spiritual environment.
Sometimes, in our desire to raise accomplished children, we overbook and overschedule their young lives. What is ideal is a structured mixture of scheduled and unscheduled time. Giving their day a thoughtful framework, we can provide balance and variety. Incorporating scheduled and unscheduled time into a firmly structured day, our children are given enough guidance as well as ample breaks and rest. Achieving this happy medium, we can be flexible as well. And although it is important to provide structure, it is also important to allow for spontaneity.
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Returning from school, my daughter Domenica seemed to do best when I would greet her with open arms and snacks, and allow her an hour to simply unwind. We can offer our children a choice of activities—perhaps a game of checkers or some free time in the backyard. We can also offer them our time and attention, asking, “How was your day?” and listening attentively as they respond. Domenica rode a stick horse to school, and I would meet her at day’s end with the same stick horse for her to ride home. We lived in New York, in Greenwich Village, and there was an excellent pizza stand adjacent to the school.
“Pizza?” I would ask her, and she often said yes. So we would ride the stick horse to the pizza stand and hobble it to a table while we devoured our pizza and debriefed on our day. It was a short ten-minute walk back to our loft, and once we were there, I would offer Domenica a choice of activities. Most days, she opted for playing with her Breyer horses, although some days her dolls won out. I noticed that she had a predilection for alone time. She didn’t want Mommy—she wanted play. I would give her that hour to play freely, and then we would turn our focus to her homework. I would try to lighten her learning with gentle, fun nudges, often making a game out of guessing the correct answers. After a decompressing hour of play, Domenica came to her homework refreshed and willing to work. Her happily anticipated hour of playtime was within the greater structure of a predictable routine, which gave her a feeling of security.
Every creative endeavor thrives in an environment of safety. One of the quickest ways to create this environment is to provide structure. As parents, we seek a balance: the greatest freedom lies within structure, but if we overschedule, we leave no room for spontaneity or inspiration.
We live in a time when opportunity floods us and our children, and it would be quite possible to fill every moment of every day with yet another educational or enlightening activity. In an effort to educate and sophisticate our children, we can push them past the point of childlike discovery and into resentment.
Christine Koh, lifestyle and parenting blogger and author of Minimalist Parenting, puts it this way: “I see our kids’ lives get overscheduled all the time. There’s so much available to us and our children that it’s possible to overdo practically everything. And we have to be careful—it’s the parent’s responsibility to give our kids room to make their own decisions. If we keep feeding them the next activity, we are not helping them develop as independent thinkers. We are teaching them that someone else will always tell them what comes next.”
If children are not given the freedom to make creative decisions on their own—including decisions about how they will spend their time—they will at first rebel, and soon thereafter become habituated to finding their answers and ideas in outside sources. There is little that can dampen their creative development more than taking away their freedom of choice and experimentation.
And so we must strike a gentle balance within which our children can learn and rest. Ian, a seven-year-old aspiring drummer, has a drumming lesson that dictates his schedule for much of his week. On Thursdays, he looks forward to the drive to the studio, where he will spend an hour with his teacher, showing him the fruits of his practicing from the week before, and be given assignments for the week to come. In between lessons, he practices thirty minutes a day or more. “I make sure it’s at least thirty minutes,” says his mother, Elizabeth. “That’s the rule. But sometimes he goes longer.” The trick is to set a goal that is low enough to meet regularly. Thirty minutes is possible for Ian to accomplish on a daily basis. It’s small enough that he feels empowered to achieve it, but large enough that he makes significant progress. If he goes beyond thirty minutes of practice, wonderful. If he becomes inspired and doesn’t want to stop, there is no reason to stop him. Elizabeth is careful to leave enough room in Ian’s schedule that he can indeed practice his drums longer than the required thirty minutes if he is so inclined. By giving him room for his passion to grow, she allows his enthusiasm to take over. Enthusiastic, he wants to work at his craft. In so doing, his skills build with speed and joy.
Within the framework of a gentle discipline, enthusiasm grows on its own, builds on itself. Elizabeth knows that half an hour a day of practice will develop the skills necessary for Ian to actually enjoy playing. As he gains momentum, his drum practice falls easily within the expectations of a “disciplined” schedule, but, because his practice is also motivated by inspiration from within, he is more likely to maintain the excitement and passion that will give his art longevity.
* * *
Structure provides a prepared environment for inspiration. Scheduling our children so that they are exposed to a variety of activities, while being cautious to leave room for their interests to grow, we give them the gift of safety and an environment in which their creativity can develop along their own authentic callings.
NAMING TALENTS
An Exercise 
Despite our best intentions of exposing our children to art and values that we care about, we cannot control where their interests or talents will lie. We must simply grant them the tools and empower them to pursue their enthusiasms.
List five talents you see in yourself.
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3.__________________________________________
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4.__________________________________________
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5.__________________________________________
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Now list five talents you see in your child. Are any the same? It’s okay if they’re not.
1.__________________________________________
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2.__________________________________________
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3.__________________________________________
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4.__________________________________________
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5.__________________________________________
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By honestly assessing each of your positive traits, you see where you are alike and where you are different. Seeing ourselves and one another with accuracy and honesty, we become closer, appreciating and acknowledging our individuality. Appreciating our children’s individuality, we are guided to structure their days along the lines of their true values as well.
A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING
We don’t always have all the room that we wish for, but we can start by husbanding the space that we do have. Clutter is distracting and discouraging for us as well as for our children, so decluttering is a great first step.
If we can designate a place for everything—“everything in its place,” as my mother, Dorothy, always said—we are in a very good place indeed. But before doing this, we must rid ourselves of that which is unnecessary, unneeded, or unwanted.
If your home is not already organized—and most people fall into this category—there are many small, simple ways to start to declutter and make space for what you really want in your life and in your child’s life. One of my favorite tools is to set a timer for fifteen minutes, and in that time, throw away, give away, or put away as much as possible. Children love to be involved in this game. The timer makes it fun (for us, too, I may add!) and sets a reasonable, accomplishable goal with immediate and gratifying results.
“Three…two…one…go!” and everyone starts racing around the house. I like to designate empty boxes as “give away” and “throw away” boxes. Perhaps there is a prize for the child who rids himself or herself of the most in the fifteen minutes. Maybe the child gets to choose an ice cream flavor at the grocery store or decide on the television show that will be watched during family time. If toys and belongings have a place of their own, it’s easy—simply return each item to its designated place. If something is determined to be trash, toss it into the “throw away” box. (You can check to be sure that the items in this box are indeed trash at the end of the session!) Setting up a box for recycling also reinforces the separation of trash and recyclables for our children. In the boxed marked “give away,” toss all items that are not trash in and of themselves, but that are only adding clutter to your home and would do better in a new home.
Charlotte recalls these fifteen-minute cleanup sessions with fondness. “My dad and I would run circles in my room, because now we could,” she says with a laugh. “I chronically threw things on the floor. But learning that I really could make an impact in fifteen minutes helped me a lot. I still use the tool—I call it ‘doing a fifteen.’” Charlotte remembers the feeling of elation when she could see the floor of her room again. “The truth is, I love having a clean, neat house,” she says. “It’s like a whole different world.”
Indeed. When we clear the physical space, we literally make room for clarity and inspiration. Respecting our space, we respect ourselves. Our space is where we live, where we reflect, where we have ideas and find a sense of grounded safety. As long as that space is open—literally—we are open to a flow of good, and a flow of good ideas.
As much as our children may love to strew their toys all over the living room floor and jump on their beds until pillows fly everywhere, I have yet to meet a child who doesn’t actually function better when that mess is restored to some semblance of serenity. What is more enticing to jump on, anyway, than a bed arranged with fluffy pillows? In giving our children order, we give them safety. In giving them safety, we give them the space to take creative flight.
Virtually every parent I have known, observed, and spoken to in the process of writing this book has mentioned the physical clutter that amasses and the struggle to keep up with it. I urge parents not to fret about it too much: although decluttering seems like an unattainable goal, it is not impossible. Even just fifteen minutes a day, over the long run, makes a huge impact. Involving our children makes an even greater one. It is empowering to discard that which we no longer need, and our children learn this quickly. And as the special, ratty toy is saved, the few cherished items gain more value as they are chosen from the rubble and given a special place of honor. It is a paradox that the less we hold on to, the more we have. Throwing away that which is old and broken leaves room for the exciting toy that was overlooked and forgotten. Rather than a mess of weathered items, we save a few valuable ones and have a collection of chosen toys and objects that carry true meaning.
“Doing a fifteen” is worthwhile even when the house appears to be clean and picked up. Taking fifteen minutes in a junk drawer or a closet also reveals treasures and trash, and always, always opens the door to optimism. I have watched many parents lament over a house that was “too small” until they cleared clutter, often finding that their house was “big enough” after all.
Clearing clutter clears our psyche as much as it clears our physical space. Tripping over the same toy several times in a day, our nerves become raw and our skin becomes thin. But small steps toward order can have a large impact on our environment and our children’s, spiritually, mentally, and physically.
Once we have established a place for everything, making a mess is less threatening. Toys may be scattered in the living room, provided that when they are done being played with, they are safely stored away. My childhood playroom, with its several large trunks, was ready for order to be restored. In Domenica’s playroom, I copycatted my mother’s use of trunks. There was one for toy horses, one for blocks, and one for dolls and doll clothes. Domenica knew which trunk was which, and the simple sorting of her toys taught her the value of order.
“But Julia! I have so much clutter. You can’t imagine how much. I could never get rid of it!” I know. It feels like a mountain that is unscalable, like a truly impossible feat. Clutter blocks our flow. It muddies our water and adds stress to our day. But taking our clutter one piece at a time, it is possible, quite possible, to become clutter-free in less time than we are afraid it might take. The trick is to take it in bite-sized increments. Fifteen minutes at a time, we can make an impact. Clearing clutter always allows us to start anew.
THE SEVENTY-TWO PICKUP
An Exercise
Growing up, when the mess got out of hand, it was time for a game my mother called “Seventy-two Pickup.” It consists of the children putting the toys away in seventy-two seconds while the adult counts out the tempo. With seven Cameron children, there was seven times the mess—and seven times the frenzy as we threw toys and art supplies into their designated trunks.
Take a cue from Dorothy Cameron and try the “Seventy-two Pickup” game with your child. This works regardless of how many children or how many toys you are dealing with. Count backward from seventy-two to zero and allow yourself and your children a sense of play and accomplishment in this race against the (human) clock.
Although Virginia Woolf suggested that all artists need a room of their own, not all of us have the extra space to achieve this. But it is worth pursuing, for ourselves and our children, and we can create these special areas, however small they might be, inspired by safety, magic, and ideas.
As we clear clutter, we find that we have more room, physically and psychically. And just as we need to have room enough for our creative endeavors, our children need to have space of their own. It is important to designate an area that is strictly our children’s. Teresa, a young mother in England, exposed her daughter to the Flower Fairy books at a young age. Together they would pore over the pictures, reading the stories and making up their own. In the garden, they would point out the different flowers and muse over which Flower Fairy existed magically within each one. When the family moved to Germany, much was new for Teresa’s daughter. They could bring only their most valuable possessions with them, and they chose the cherished items carefully when they packed up their things. When they got to their new home, Teresa watched as her daughter carted her Flower Fairy book everywhere with her, clutching it tightly on car trips and turning its pages as she sat in the corner of their new living room, where everything—including the language spoken around them—had changed.
Teresa was suddenly struck with an idea: there was a cubbyhole in a large walk-in closet in their new house. What if she were to make it a special place for her daughter? Remembering how much she had loved the secret compartments built into the walls of the house she had grown up in herself, she wallpapered the cubbyhole with Flower Fairy wallpaper, added a small chair and a Flower Fairy lamp, and hung a Flower Fairy curtain as a doorway that could be closed if her daughter wanted privacy in her secret space.
Her daughter, now grown, still remembers the thrill of having a room of her own. “Turning on the lamp and seeing the fairies illuminated, I felt like it was all real. It was a magical place where Flower Fairies lived. I would read my book or sit there with my stuffed animals or my cat. The little room was rich with possibility and fantasy. To this day I have wonderfully fond memories of those books, and cozy spaces always speak to me.” Giving our children the gift of space, and adding even the simplest touches that make that space truly theirs, we give our children room to imagine, to dream, and to become themselves.
Creating space that is habitable and inviting helps everyone, and we can look for areas of our homes that might be improved for our own benefit as well. And when we take care of ourselves in this way, the happy by-product is that it also helps our children.
“For almost a year, my terrace has been basically unusable,” says Jenn, calling long-distance from Miami. It is the first I have heard of her having a terrace. I tell her as much. “I know,” Jenn laments. “We have a grill out there, which is great. And my husband uses that. But there’s a huge table filling up practically the whole space—it gets crowded as soon as two people are out there—and the tiles, chairs, and table are filthy. It’s basically a kind of dirty storage unit in view of the street.”
I ask Jenn what she thinks it would take to bring it to a more usable condition. “Well, probably just a bucket of hot, soapy water, a sponge, and a little elbow grease,” she admits. “We need a smaller table, but the huge one folds in half and could be stored off to the side.”
I let her know that the project, in fact, doesn’t sound very large. “What would happen if you spent fifteen minutes on this?” I ask her.
“I’ll try it,” Jenn says. “I didn’t have any plans for the next fifteen minutes, anyway,” she laughs. “What was I going to do? Check my e-mail? Browse the Internet? I’m turning on the hot water and getting the bucket out now. I’ll call you back in fifteen.”
I smile to myself as I hang up the phone, knowing full well that the progress she will make in that window will astonish and relieve her.
In twelve-step jargon, there is talk of “progress, not perfection.” This is a good mantra for us as well, as we guide our creative children and attend to the creative children in ourselves. A little goes a long way. That means a little praise, a little encouragement, a little down-on-hands-and-knees scrubbing. It is far harder and more painful to be a blocked artist than it is to do the work. It is far harder and more painful to try to look the other way every time we pass the terrace window, wincing and feeling discouraged, than it is to fill the bucket with water and clean it up. Incremental progress adds up much faster than we would assume. The pain of not taking this small step is far more destructive to our psyche and productivity than just being willing to take a few minutes and toss a few things out or make a space habitable. One thing leads to the next, and letting go of the unwanted makes way for the new and surprising.
My phone rings again, and it is Jenn.
“First of all, it’s hotter than blazes out there,” she tells me. I already hear the levity in her voice.
“Well, good. You’re well into grilling season, then. Perfect timing,” I reply.
“And I have to tell you that that scrubbing is a bit of a workout,” Jenn goes on.
“Good!” I say. “You like to work out.” To say that she is a fitness enthusiast is a vast understatement. There is hardly a day when she doesn’t surf, swim, or lift weights.
Jenn laughs. “Fair enough. But here’s the thing: I started scrubbing, and it was really, really dirty out there. The tiles were literally black. But I realized a few things.”
“Let’s hear them.”
“First of all, if you had asked me what color my tiles were, I would have told you gray. They’re white,” she says, chuckling. “Second, fifteen minutes is significant. You can get a lot done. I even want to do another fifteen minutes when I hang up. Because I realized that I have a terrace. I’m lucky. It’s beautiful. I have an ocean view, and I had literally shoved a bunch of clutter between me and the reason I bought this apartment.”
I listen, feeling for her.
“And now,” she continues, “I know exactly what to do with my short story that I was stuck on. I’m going to finish cleaning the terrace, set my daughter up with her drawing pad next to me, and sit out there with my laptop, with an unobstructed view of the Atlantic, and write. Each tile I scrub helps sort out my story line. And my daughter keeps yelling, ‘Water! Water!’ I’ve been blocking the view from her, too.”
I’m thrilled to hear her clarity and excitement, and not surprised. Over and over, my students have reported not only physical but also creative breakthroughs they have had almost immediately upon clearing clutter and husbanding their space.
Using the space we have, we literally make room for our ideas. Creating a room of our own, however small, we are inspired to take action in larger ways as well.
A ROOM OF YOUR OWN
An Exercise
Taking a cue from Teresa and Jenn, look around your home and see if there is a place that could become a sort of “creative haven” for you or your child. Ideally, you can create one for each of you. Allow the space to be small, if square feet are an issue. It is the quality, vibrancy, and thoughtfulness of the space that matters more than the size of the space itself.
MISUNDERSTANDING MESSINESS
Children love mess, and it is important that we allow them to create chaos. The child who is overcontrolled is a child who misses the glee of play. Artists of any age love play. Play is messy. For all of us, the part of us that creates is our own “inner child.” We may be tired of hearing about the “inner child,” but as we observe our children and reflect on ourselves, we recognize the part of ourselves that is also youthful, playful, and uninhibited by outer limits or rules. Giving our inner artist—as well as our child—room to be messy is freeing and enlivening for all.
Angie’s California home is sleek and bright, a modern house with clean lines and new amenities. She bought it recently with her young family, and upon moving in, she realized she was trying to “preserve the perfection” in a way that was frustrating herself, her husband, and her young son, Richard.
“I loved the shininess of it when we moved in,” says Angie. “I’ve never lived in such a new place or had such modern appliances. I wanted to keep it just like new.” But with three-year-old Richard and a busy lifestyle, this was not a realistic possibility. A quest to maintain perfection is actually a blocking technique: because we can never, ever be perfect, the obsession with chasing perfection can effectively block other, more creative ideas that wish to bubble to the surface. Striving for perfection, while it may sound noble, is actually a cleverly disguised technique for closing the door on our creativity and, by extension, that of our child.
Angie quickly saw that she was not going to be able to maintain perfect order in her home, and, even if she could, it would not be the most joyous use of her time. “At first I was cleaning up after everyone all the time. I resented my son for scattering toys everywhere, and I resented my husband for leaving a wet towel in the bedroom or a dish in the sink. Before I knew it, I was a martyred wife. I never thought I even had that side of myself.” Angie’s story is a common one. Rather than listen to the inklings of creative desires in herself, she focused on the handprint on the refrigerator or the crooked book on the bookshelf. Entire days would pass when she had done nothing but clean up. On those days, she fell into bed exhausted and unsatisfied. “I felt like I wasn’t doing anything with myself,” she complained. And in fact, she was right.
When we fall into the trap of spending our days attempting to correct all superficial imperfections—be they imperfections in our surroundings or in our bodies—we are indeed “not doing anything with ourselves.” Because we are all creative, we all have daily creative urges, large and small, that, left untended, will fester into sadness and resentment. I urged Angie to try a simple exercise.
“Fill in the blank five times,” I told her. “If it weren’t too messy, I’d try…”
Annie started to fill out her list. At first, what she found didn’t really surprise her. “If it weren’t too messy, I’d let Richard take over the kitchen table with his finger paints. If it weren’t too messy, I’d encourage my husband to do more grilling. He loves to grill.” But as Angie continued, her own wishes started to emerge. “If it weren’t too messy, I’d plant a new batch of flowers in the front garden. If it weren’t too messy, I’d think about getting my own oil paints back out and fooling around with them again.” Angie was shocked to learn that much of what was waiting to be set free was her own creativity. Planting flowers, painting—these were things that Angie had deemed less important than raising a family in a perfectly clean and ordered house. I urged Angie to experiment just a little bit with allowing herself and her family some messiness, and to get back to me with what she found.
“First of all,” she reported, “Richard absolutely loved the finger-painting project. I haven’t seen him so happy—or, actually, so focused—in quite a while. I couldn’t believe how long he was occupied with the paints. Even more shocking was that it took only a few minutes to clean up when he was done. I was so scared of making a mess that I had become afraid to start anything. I had a completely unrealistic, fear-based expectation of what it would take to clean up. And so the next day I got his paints out again, and this time, I got my own out, too. I think we might start painting together every day.”
I was thrilled to hear that Angie was indulging in something of her own alongside Richard. What could be better for Richard, I thought, than a mother modeling the creative giddiness of painting beside him? Certainly not a mother whose worry about cleanup was palpable. Our children notice what we do and feel—and that includes the unspoken worry about cleaning up the mess that is being created. Exposed to a parent who is also willing to play with paint, willing to “fool around” with colors and shapes, Richard’s creativity is bound to know no limits. Richard can also learn to help clean up his things and, more important, learn that it is worth starting something even if it will make a mess. If we are unwilling to ever make a mess, we are teaching our children that we are unwilling to start projects, unwilling to try new things. As we model the excitement of play in an artistic endeavor, and the willingness to clean up without drama or resentment, we are showing our children that they, too, can experiment, and that beginning a project is something to be eagerly anticipated instead of avoided.
MAKE A MESS
An Exercise
Make a mess with your child. When you are done, time the cleanup. You may be surprised at what an impact only five minutes can make. By jumping right into the cleanup, you are showing your child—and yourself—that mess is not threatening or an imaginary creative block. It is part of a thrilling process in which you can both play freely.
We teach our children to say “Please” and Thank you” as we model these behaviors ourselves. If we are genuine and gracious with the bus driver, our children learn to do the same. If we are honest and generous in our communication with our spouse, our children learn that, too. Children mimic what we do and absorb it. If we set boundaries with kindness, our children learn that boundary setting is okay. If we are impatient or judgmental, our children learn to emulate that as well.
No parent is perfect, and no child has even a day of “perfect” behavior. But if we are conscious of our own basic behavior and way of operating with others, we can set a deliberate example. If there is one thing that we can be guaranteed of as parents, it is that our children are watching us. They are learning from what we do, positive, negative, or indifferent. And suddenly our behavioral choices are very important.
As we model and coach our children to have respect for and be kind to others, we teach them to behave in society in a way that will help them make friends and allies in the world. Most of us have a good sense of how to do this.
When Domenica was little, I worked hard at instilling manners. “What do we say?” I would ask her when she made a request. She soon learned “Please.” “What do we say?” I would ask her when I performed some task on her behalf. She learned to say “Thank you.” These simple niceties stood her in very good stead. When she would go to play at a friend’s house, she took her manners with her, and I was often complimented on her amenities. Soon enough, Domenica had learned not only the correct answers but also the cues. I would overhear her playing, teaching what she had learned to her dolls and stuffed animals. Her young friends quickly picked up Domenica’s “rules.” “I want the dolly, please,” I would hear them say. Domenica’s teachers were often appreciative of her decorum. “Domenica has good manners,” I would hear at parent-teacher meetings.
Now that Domenica is grown, her manners have grown along with her. “Please” and “Thank you” are never out of style.
We are more creative when we feel respected. My friend Max, an art teacher, says that in the classroom, respect is the only “rule” that really matters. “It’s about mutual respect,” he says. “Sometimes teachers try to command respect by putting students down, instilling fear or intimidating them, but I don’t think that really works. My philosophy is to treat them as I’d like to be treated: with warmth, politeness, kindness, and humor. And to never ask them to do anything I wouldn’t do myself.”
Is it a surprise that Max is beloved among his students and has many times won the title of “Teacher of the Year”?
It’s not always easy, though, to maintain this dynamic. From the outside, Max seems to have an effortless, warm control of his classroom, and I tell him as much. “Don’t you ever disagree with your students?” I ask him.
“All the time. Every day. Countless times.” He smiles. “But I think it’s very important for them to know that we’re not always going to get along.” A father as well as a teacher, Max says that his home and classroom life have certain similarities. “There’s a time and place for ‘Because I said so,’” he tells me. “Sometimes as a teacher or parent, you do know what is right for the child, whether it feels fair to them or not. In the long run it all works out. In the moment, there’s sometimes some turbulence. But it’s important not to get into a negotiation in these moments. I think when we allow a child to negotiate in a way that is not respectful, we are teaching them to be manipulative people. It’s important to keep an eye on that.”
Basic human respect and common courtesy are lessons we must be willing to teach, and good behavior is something we must be conscious to model. Whether it is for our immediate family, an elderly neighbor, the person working at the grocery store checkout, or a close friend, a doctor, a lawyer, a painter, or a filmmaker, every person deserves our respect. Regardless of class or sociocultural norms, every person we encounter deserves our warm hello and our acts of kindness.
As we demonstrate good manners in the world and also in relation to speaking about creativity in the world, our children mimic and emulate our behavior. Demonstrating a respect for artists and creative urges, we acknowledge the creativity in ourselves and others. Treating others as we wish to be treated ourselves, our children learn to do the same. And as we—and our children—reach out to the world with warmth, the world often reaches back in kind.
APPRECIATING RESPECT
An Exercise
List five ways you appreciate being treated. If your child is old enough, ask him or her to do this exercise as well.
Examples:
I appreciate when someone listens to me without interrupting.
I appreciate the stranger who smiles and says “Good morning” when we pass on the street.
I appreciate someone seeing the positive in what I have done.
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2.__________________________________________
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3.__________________________________________
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4.__________________________________________
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5.__________________________________________
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Now find an opportunity today to treat another person with thoughtful kindness, as you would wish to be treated yourself.