March Precept 

Mr. Browne’s March precept is:

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

-Blaise Pascal

I think this precept means that it doesn’t hurt to say a kind word. Kind words will always help the person you say kind words too. Being kind will help you too. But I’ll get to that later on. It does not take any effort to say a nice thing to someone. All you really are doing is saying words. Just open your mouth and say a kind thing to someone. No one will get offended if you say something kind, too. You’re just saying a kind thing to another person. Think about it: Let’s say someone says some really nice thing about you, would you say a) something really mean to them that would hurt their feelings, or b) say something nice to them (even like “thank you”).  This leads me to my next idea.

You probably picked b) in that last question. If you didn’t, you need to have a chat with yourself. Anyways, if you did pick b) do you think you said something kind? Most likely, so that means that when you say someone says something kind to you, it brightens up your mood and you might say something kind to someone else! Would you say something kind when you’re mad and sad, or when you’re happy and upbeat? This is what I think, “Yet they accomplish much” means. Not only you’re accomplishing making whoever you say kind words to happy, but they may say kind things to someone else to keep the streak still going.This is what I think this precept means.

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This month’s precept is “Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much” – Blaise Pascal

I think Mr. Pascal meant that it’s easy to use kind words and they achieve more than mean, rude words do.

Option 1: Let’s say that there were two girls and those two girls were having an argument.

Girl 1: Why did you say those mean things about me behind my back?

Girl 2: How do you know I said anything about you?

Girl 1: Because I heard you say them. I just want an apology.

Girl 2: No, I’m not giving you an apology, you’re so selfish.

Girl 1: Hey! Why did you call me selfish?

Girl 2: Because you are selfish.

Both girls start yelling and shouting at each other, then a teacher comes and hears them arguing.

Teacher: Why are you girls arguing?

Girl 1 tells the teacher why and the two girls make up.

Option 2: Instead of arguing and making a big deal out of it, the girls could’ve used kind words like this:

Girl 1: Hi, I don’t like it when you say mean things about me behind my back.

Girl 2: I’m sorry that I was rude to you, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.

Girl 1: It’s okay, I accept your apology.

In both options there was a conflict but it got handled differently, because in option 1, Girl 2 started making a fuss. In option 2, the two girls handled the conflict but they resolved it with kind words instead of yelling and shouting. So would you want a conflict that you have to be like option 1 or 2. I honestly would like a conflict of mine to be like option 2.