If discipline is “doing the right thing even when nobody is looking”, kindness is doing a good thing for somebody even when nobody is looking. A kind act is a manifestation of genuine respect, caring, mercy and compassion. Without these, what appears to be a good deed is a mere attempt to project a wholesome public image or a means to a selfish end.
What random acts of kindness have you witnessed this month? There was an old woman who stood outside a popular fastfood restaurant. After a few minutes, she was already seated inside. I thought she was waiting for someone because she merely sat there, then I noticed that a couple ordered a meal and gave it to the old woman. Witnessing such an act of kindness has become a rarity these days.
People talk about changing the world. Maybe what the world really needs is for its inhabitants to sow seeds of kindness even if there is no reward. Well, they say kindness is magical. You can’t share it without reaping something in return. It boomerangs!
November 13 is World Kindness Day.You can support it in many different ways:
1. Give your presence to someone who needs encouragement.
2. Be considerate to children, the elderly, pregnant women, and persons with disability.
3. Cancel someone’s debt.
4. Help your neighbor at once if you are capable (don’t ask him/her to come back).
5. Check on someone who lives alone, especially in times of calamity.
6. Patronize the products of small vendors/businesses. (Stop asking for discounts!)
7. Offer help when it is needed.
8. Give a church worker/missionary, a hard-working employee, or a single parent an unexpected gift or treat.
9. Pool your resources so you can send a child of a war, calamity, crime, or accident victim to school. Ask the beneficiary to do the same when he/she becomes capable.
10. Do something just to make a friend, relative, classmate, or co-worker smile.
11. Donate blood, food items, clothes, money (any or all of these) to charity.
12. Appreciate a person for his/her devotion/achievement while he/she is still alive.
13. Remember people who are hardly remembered by others – and make sure they notice.
14. Thank people who have done something kind, thoughtful, or special.
15. Make programs, facilities, and activities inclusive (meal choices for people who do not eat pork, ramps for PWDs, rooms for mothers with babies/toddlers, chairs for the left-handed, etc.).
16. Make the room a little bit cleaner, safer, and happier than when you first walked in.
What can you add to this list? “If we all do one random act of kindness daily, we just might set the world in the right direction”, says Martin Kornfeld.
(Marilyn Arayata: E-mail [email protected]. Like the Hope Boosters Facebook Page for nuggets of hope and inspiration.) (Marilyn C. Arayata)