Saturday, July 09, 2005
Kindness is Contagious
I awoke on Thursday, like many of us, to the
news of the bombings
in London and thoughts of 9-11 went racing through my head. It was all
too much and frankly it
left me feeling sad and extremely angry. I found myself asking where
all the kindness had gone and why there was so much hatred in the world
today.
What
could I possibly do to infuse some kindness into the world around
me? Then it hit me and I recalled the following little trinket.
Out of the Mouths of Babes…
When my son was in fourth grade (I remember this day like it was
yesterday), he shared an amazing epiphany with me on the way to school,
which went something like this…
A: Mom, I have a theory.
Me: What’s your theory?
A:
Well, first I have a question to ask. When you see a glass partially
filled with water, do you see the glass half empty or half full?
Me: I see the class half full.
A: That means you are an optimist.
Me: Yes, I am.
A: Well, let’s take that same glass and think of it in terms of
kindness. For each act of kindness you do, you receive a drop of water.
If you are really kind, your glass begins to over-flow.
Me: ::::sitting silent with jaw dropping to the floor:::::
A: If you are not a very kind person and you do mean things to others,
you get a drop of water taken out of your glass. The more mean things
you do, the less water you have until your glass is empty. If your
glass is empty you have less chance of having nice things happen to
you.
Me: :::still sitting in amazement::::
A: HOWEVER, if you are a really kind person and your glass is
overflowing, the water from your glass will trickle into other people’s
glasses, because Mom, kindness is contagious, just like a cold.
Me: Where did that come from, Sweetie?
A: My head
It Only Takes One Small Act…
..to
touch, to make a difference, to share goodness. Think about
it… How did you feel the last time a perfect stranger smiled at you and
said, “Hello”? OR
The time when a perfect stranger opened the door for you or helped you
pick up something you dropped? Did that leave you with a nice feeling?
If EVERY single person made it a point to share one act of kindness EVERY
day, what a wonderful place this would be. Sound simple? It is and it
does make a huge difference in the lives of others and in your own.
It does not have to be a grandiose gesture or even one that takes a large amount of energy. It can be as small as the following:
1) Opening the door for someone.
2) Saying “Bless you” when someone sneezes.
3) Allowing someone to merge into traffic during rush hour.
4) Complimenting a colleague on something they have done.
5) Telling someone close to you how much they mean to you.
6) Hugging a friend out of the blue.
7) Letting someone with fewer groceries go in front of you in the checkout line.
With
those ideas in mind I challenge you. Make it a point for the next four
weeks to share a positive act with someone every day. At the end of
every week, please post here and share some of the things you did, how
it made you feel, and the results from your random acts of kindness.
You can do this, we all can – we can make a positive change, one person
at a time.
Until next time, be well…
Pam
Posted by Pam at 3:06:53 PM in Creating Change (89) | Permalink | Comments (0)
