3 – Do Something Kind For a Stranger
To inspire you to consider ways to be kind to strangers, I offer the website Year of Giving. The person behind it lost his job and decided to defy the conventional wisdom of needing to save his money since he was out of work. Instead, he started giving it away, $10 to a random person each day! The website is his record of his experience. My link takes you to his overview page which helps the reader better understand his rationale for taking on the project. Then click on the “Home” link in the upper left. You’ll see his description of his most recent act on top, with the others below it. It’s fascinating reading and, I hope, inspiring.
On that note, in another of my kindness classes a student was inspired to do something similar. She connected this theme to a book she had recently read in which the author tells the story of undoing his life’s top 20 regrets. She was inspired by the author talking about a man who over the last 25 years has given away $100,000. She posted, “Okay, I’m not secretly wealthy — but my plan is to send out $10 in cash via US Mail to five random people (via the phone book) with a note that they’ve been the recipient of a random act of kindness.”
Try to imagine how you’d feel if you randomly received $10 in the mail. What would you do with the money? How could you not be inspired to be more aware of the kindnesses going on around us at all times?
Next Step: Reflection Message #3.
Kind Living 