What do I bring? I am bringing kindness.

What did I take a picture of? A slide from a park. 

Why did I choose this word and image? 

My freshman year seminar class we had to take a personality test. This test provided me with my five best personality traits as a person/student. My best trait was kindness. While I was brainstorming about different ideas for this project to show kindness, I thought about a specific place and time when kindness was introduced to my life and when I chose to show kindness to others. I started thinking of being young and making friends. The first friend I made was at a local playground. This is a common theme for most children since it is so easy for someone to make friends while having fun and playing outside. The reason I chose the slide is because when you hit the playground for the first time no matter if it’s a local park or the one at school, a slide is a very common thing you see. A lot of children that have their first experience at a playground run directly for the slide. 

Imagine going into your first day of kindergarten scared, anxious and not knowing anyone. Imagine being a student who was transferred to a new school where other friendships already exist. These are two scenarios that are hard for anyone and making new friends is the first thing you think about. The reason I chose kindness and to photograph a slide is because as a young child you don’t know what to expect. By showing kindness to others they will accept you for who you are. I feel the best place where you can be yourself is at the park repeatedly going down the slide with all your new friends.

When you think about the park you usually would think about a slide. When you think about that slide you will think about making your very first friend, and the reason you made that friend is because of kindness. It's all connected. 

Being kind is something I’ve always been told by others. They would say that my bubbly personality tends to make everyone happy and not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. I feel as if I’ve always been kind but I never really knew the true meaning of the word until the impact I had on the special education program in high school. Over fall break, I visited the special needs class. Seeing how much we have missed each other and all my special friendships I still have with all of them all steamed from being kind