16 easy ways to make congeniality contagious

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congeniality

noun. The quality of being pleasant and friendly: affability, agreeability, agreeableness, amenity, amiability, amiableness, congenialness, cordiality, cordialness, friendliness, geniality, genialness, pleasantness, sociability, sociableness, warmth.

Why write about congeniality? Why not?

Kindness is king, and pleasant and friendly feelings make the world go around. It was Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Polish-born American rabbi and a Jewish theologian, who said “When I was young, I admired clever people, Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”

Young or old, clever or not, we can all be more kind — more congenial.

Let’s trace my kindness quest, if you will with me, back to my childhood. My parents are both community-mind, welcoming people who guided my sister and me with grace and goodness. Both were always about serving others and the greater good, my Mom was a nurse and my Dad spent the majority of his career in executive leadership roles at Goodwill Industries in both Milwaukee and Chicago.

During the summers of my childhood, since my parents both worked, I spent most of my days at McKinley Elementary School playground in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Tree-lined, Tosa (as everyone calls…