perform a random act of kindness

I was struck by a very enlightning thought quite some time ago.

In general if I pass someone begging I don’t give them money because I don’t know what they will spend it on.

The general, usual excuse is oh they will just use it to buy drugs or alcohol or whatever, right?

A friend once told me a simple story of a time she had been in town taking out money and there was someone at the ATM begging.

And I thought about what I would have done. What if I were on a night out with my friends and I went to a ATM to take out money and ignored someone begging because they might spend the money on alcohol or drugs?

And then I realised. I would be taking out money to go spend it on alcohol on a night out! I would be such a fecking hypocrite! I would standing there thinking that excuse and then go do the same thing!

We ignore people tha are homeless or begging on the street. We act as if they don’t exist, for fear we may be asked for help or money. How dare we! How dare we ignore our fellow human beings!

So I now vow to never pass up an opportunity to do a random act of kindness. I vow to help someone as much as I can. If a homeless person wants to spend my euros on drink so be it. Maybe it will help him forget, just for one night. Or maybe, just maybe, it will help him just a little. We can never truely know exactly how long the ripples of our decisions survive. Maybe a act of kindness will change someones life. Maybe a simple gesture or kind word will restore someones faith in human kindness. I can only hope…

I’m going to buy the book 365 random acts of kindness by David Wallace for inspiration!

I added this to my list on 43things after taking a walk in Central Park and coming across a group of people who had created “Project Smile.” There were a bunch of Post-it note sized cards with a random act of kindness written on it. Whoever wanted to participate in “Project Smile” was asked to take one card that appealed to them and then do whatever was written on it. I took one but have yet to do what is on the card I chose, only because the situation has not presented itself. I still plan on doing it though, once I get the chance.

Even though I haven’t done the random act on the card, I realized how many other random acts of kindness I do on my own. Therefore, I decided to mark this goal as done because I realized that every day, I try to do little things to make someones day better. Whether it be holding the door open for someone or just smiling at someone, I feel like I made that persons day a bit brighter – even if it’s just a small bit. I love it when people perform random acts of kindness so I aim to do the same every day, whenever an opportunity presents itself.

i cant think of an example, but i just try to live my life this way everyday.

smile.
love.
encourage.

even to strangers.
pick things up if someone drops something.
try to be generous and offer things when you have them and can give them, etc etc

i try!

I got the idea for this from the movie Evan Almighty.

I’m trying to think of different ARK’s to do.

I’m marking this as done. I want to keep it in my awareness though as part of my “change the world 20 minutes at a time” goal.

I try to do this as much as I can.
Yesterday morning a tired looking woman at the bus stop asked me if I could read when her bus was coming. I was actually waiting for a taxi to the same place (Easy to just tell the cab driver you are in whatever bus stop, gives you a place to sit while you wait) and her bus wasnt coming for half an hour. So when my taxi arrived I told her to hop in coz I was going to the same place- she tried to help pay for the ride but I said, nah, it would have cost me the same whether I let you come too or not.
She was thrilled, and we had a nice chat on the ride, and it made me feel good.

It wasn’t really all altruistic, though- I LOVE it when people do unexpected things for me too!

I went grocery shopping on Saturday and the lines were packed with people. I had a cart ful and I was next in line when this older man with like 10 things got in line behind me. I told him to go ahead of me and after thanking me profusely he told me how he had been on his feet all day working and had to grab a few things. It made me feel great! I will definitely do it again!

I read a book with ideas for random acts of kindness today. I think I’ll note down my favourites and try them out.

I had an opportunity to do something much more major the other day. It was an extremely hot day, around 38 Celscius, as it has been the last few days. There were a group of teenagers on my bus and it was obvious one of them was in great distress. She couldn’t sit up and was lying on the floor of the bus, often not responding at all to her friends attempts to talk to her and wake her up.

Listening to the conversation, it became apparent she was severely dehydrated and hadn’t had anything to drink all day. I couldn’t help but think that was extremely foolish, given the weather, but my own half drunk bottle of water immediately became a weight on my conscience. So I got it out and gave it to her friends, who were very grateful.