Random Acts Of Kindness: Day 1

I have been wanting to do a 30 day “Random Act Of Kindness” blog section for a while, but never wanted to commit to posting here 30 days in a row.

Joshua keeps pushing me on it though, so I’ve finally cracked. ;)

So with that said…

What this is about: I love to do “random acts of kindness (RAOK)”. It’s partly purely selfish – it feels AMAZING to be able to give to other people. I’m also a big believer in the “ripple effect” – if I do something nice for someone, they’ll do something nice for someone, and so on and so forth, making the world a happier place.

I will be committing to doing a RAOK every day for the next 30 days. I’m still not sure about posting here every day for 30 days, but I WILL commit to posting here as frequently as possible (some days I might have a few days’ worth of updates).

In all actuality, I probably already do a RAOK once a day (or at least an average of 7 a week) – but I want to post here because:

a) It seems like whenever I mention a RAOK on Twitter or Facebook, people say, “Wow – I want to do that!” It seems like it’d be fun to share ideas.

b) Even if someone looks at this blog and doesn’t decide to go do something nice on their own, it should at the minimum, put them in a slighter better mood than when they got here. :)

What I consider a RAOK: A random act of kindness can be whatever you feel comfortable with. It could just be waiting for an extra minute to hold the door open for someone or giving someone a huge smile. It does NOT always have to deal with money, and it’s whatever you feel comfortable with (or NOT, which is even better, so you can push yourself out of your comfort zone!)

Just to get your imagination going, here are some things I’ve done in the past:

– Offered to babysit for a busy mom who couldn’t otherwise afford a babysitter
– Bought a gift card to randomly give someone in the parking lot
– Saw a guy trying on hats on the street in Vegas and went over to buy one for him
– Read to kids at the Salvation Army
– Paid for the person behind me’s toll on a bridge

What I would LOVE: If you started posting doing RAOK’s here, that would be AWESOME!!!

The stories that can come out of RAOK’s ROCK. Last week I went to go give someone a gift card and we ended up becoming friends and are going to hike together soon.

The week before that I ended up talking with a homeless man for a few hours. He ended up BLOWING MY MIND with how much he knew, and really challenged my thought structure. He actually wanted to be homeless, because he said he’d rather live in a box than with people that he considered had “toxic” lifestyles. It was so interesting to hear about how he stashed his stuff, things he went through, etc…

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE to hear about different people and their perspectives on life.

Okay, so with all that out of the way…

What I did for Day 1: Today the UPS man (who I’ve never met before) came to my door with a package for me. I saw the box said Oh Nuts (candy/nut store) on it, so I told him that my mom must have been sending me a Valentine’s present.

I told him that the stuff from there is very good, and he said he’d have to try it sometime. I asked him if he wanted me to open the box so he could try some. He acted surprised, but said yes. I ended up getting out the scissors, opening the box, and giving him a goodie bag of different treats.

He walked out with a HUGE smile on his face. :)