Day 1 of Random Acts of Kindness

If you’ve listened for a while you probably know that I read every morning – something to feed my brain and something to feed my spiritual life. I have been reading a lot lately about kindness, being kind, and being a caring person. Then in my spiritual reading this morning I learned that God told the Israelites to care for their brothers and their brothers’ belongings –not to ignore them. If they came across their brother’s property, they were to protect it and return it, or take good care of it until it could be returned.  So I thought that kindness and caring would be a great topic for this week. Then few minutes after making that decision, I learned that this week is random acts of kindness week!  Don’t you love it when things like that happen? I do so let’s celebrate and explore random acts of kindness this week. We’ll look at the what, when, why, and how and hopefully pick up a new life enriching habit.

I have a friend, a wonderful gentleman. He’s tough and strong, and believes that people should make the most of their natural abilities, take care of themselves and pay others for help when it’s needed. Yet, this self-sufficient man who believes government welfare is wrong is kind and quietly giving. He takes care of his surroundings and gives to people in need. He generously gives his money to causes he believes in. He gives his time, has been a Junior Achievement volunteer for years, a chemistry and economics tutor, and if you express an interest, he’ll happily teach you to tango. We talked about these things one time and the reason he gave me stays with me. He said, “I do these things because I want to live in a world where people do these things.”  That conversation comes back to me often. As I roll my grocery cart to the coral rather than leave to possibly roll into another car, I think, I want to live in a world where people put their carts away. As I let a single car into my lane in heavy traffic (not 5 to be rude to the people behind me) I think, I want to live in a world where people are courteous in traffic.

Kindness can be many things. Let someone in front of you in the grocery line if they seem to be in a hurry or have an tired child with them.

What kind of world do we want to live in? I can’t and I don’t want to coerce others to do what I believe is kind or caring but I can decide to be kind and caring. I can make that choice every day in small ways and sometimes in grand ways. All this week, we’re going to look at random acts of kindness. I would love to hear what you think. Send me an email at [email protected] or leave a comment on my website, rockinlife.co. Happy Random Acts of Kindness Week! Please join me for more kindness tomorrow, bring a friend, and share this episode. Have a beautiful day and we’ll talk again.