Information technology has made us more connected than ever but many Australians are feeling lonelier than ever. Kindness, says psychologist and social researcher Hugh Mackay, is the antidote.
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Mr Mackay has joined Stay Kind director Ralph Kelly to launch a community-building exercise as part of Kind July.
They're calling it Australia's Kindness Brunch and it aims to restore the connections within communities - on our streets and in our neighbourhoods.
It's a simple concept: reach out to others and invite them for brunch on July 17 or 18. And just like throwing a stone in a pond, Mr Mackay said, the ripples of one act of kindness could become hundreds.
"I think we are coming to understand that kindness is not some remarkable quality you can develop if you work hard enough at it, it's what comes naturally to us," he said.
"It's good to think of kindness as being true to our human nature, we can think of kindness as a way of being in the world, not something we turn on for special occasions - it's like breathing."
Ralph Kelly knows the damage a lack of kindness can do. His son Thomas was killed in an unprovoked attack in Sydney's Kings Cross 10 years ago. Four years later he lost his other son Stuart to suicide, after a bullying episode at university.
"When Thomas died, my brother-in-law as we left the ICU whispered in my ear, 'get angry'," Mr Kelly said. "I never forgot that. I did get angry. I lost an 18-year-old boy for no reason - he was walking along the street and became a homicide victim.
"This was Sydney. It was meant to be a generous, kind and loving place but there was this terrible culture of drinking and violence. I couldn't fathom how my son had been killed by a total stranger. It didn't make sense to me."
As he researched preventative measures, he kept coming back to the value of kindness.
Ten years later he's the head of Stay Kind, the charitable foundation that he and wife Kathy began with a mission to promote kindness and prevent Australians harming each other and themselves.
"There's 25 million Australians, if we all do an act of kindness in July, that's 770 million acts of kindness," he said.
You can register to take part in Kind July or Australia's Kindness Brunch at staykind.org, and receive daily ideas for simple acts of kindness for the month.
Mr Mackay's latest book is The Kindness Revolution.
We can think of kindness as a way of being in the world, not something we turn on for special occasions - it's like breathing.
- Hugh Mackay