From Amanda's very early writing (1990s to early 2000s), shared as it was originally written.
Random acts of kindness.
Last week I spoke at a conference in America where 5000 people gathered for the annual Million Dollar Round Table. It's a fantastic conference and one of the many great speakers there was a man called Chuck Wall.
He is blind. a university professor and the man who started a new craze in the States. He was reading a newspaper one day that carried a headline - "Radom acts of senseless violence". He was appalled at the level and amount of violence that seemed to be steadily increasing in his country. Suddenly, he thought wouldn't it be great if people started committing random acts of senseless kindness. And he started writing about it and teaching it and soon he was on radio and TV and had bumper stickers and an enormous following.
What a great concept! Random acts of kindness for no reason. Just being nice to people. Helping someone who didn't ask you for help but was obviously struggling. Being thoughtful. Noticing if someone is tired and offering to do their shopping.
One of the interesting points Chuck made was that many of his students and people who listened to him assumed that these acts of kindness involved money or had to be big things.
No, no, no! Often the smallest and least expensive acts are the most appreciated.
Why not set yourself a target of committing at least one random act of kindness every day - at work and at hoem.
Do you know an act of kindness could be listening to someone for 5 minutes or giving them your full attention for the time you listen to them; you could smile when you see someone; catch their eye and non verbally send them a message you understand or care or love them; make a phone call to yoru partner to say 'just thinking of you'; write a love letter or send a card for no reason other then to say 'I care'; write to your parents to say how grateful you are that they are yoru parents and how much you appreciate all the things they did for you and al lthe sacrifices they made for you - how you wouldn't be where youa re today if it was't for their love and support; or visit an old peoples home just to say hello to a lonely person.
Visit an old person you know lives alone; take children from an orphanage out; carry someone's bag if it looks heavy for them; stand up and give someone who is more frail than you your seat; pay a toll for the person in the car behind you; wash someone's car.
Why not gather your family together in the next couple of weeks and see what random acts of kindness you could come up with! Not only do you help other people and foster good values in yoru children - but you boost yoru immune system! Whenever you help anyone else you chemically boost the strength of your immune system.
If you are a teacher , why not explain the concept to children inyour class and make it a monthly project to commit random acts of senseless kindness; have 'show and tell' but do it around these acts.
At yoru workplace - create a committee for acts of kindness! Ask others how they are feeling - that's an act of caring/kindness. We never really know how lonely people are - we see a facade and we often don't know how many people rely on their work for all their social contact. Ask about someones child who has been ill or thier parents or other relatives. These are all small yet meaningful things to do.
Could you offer someone a ride? A word of encouragement?
You may never know the impact of what seems to you a small and simple thing to do for someone else! Can you recall a time in your life when someone - especially an adult when you were a child- did something for you or said something kind to you and it had a huge impact? Well, you may affect hundreds of people the same way if you start committing random acts of senseless kindness today.A touch of recognition? Recognition is the thing that most humans crave - it is especially important for children and colleagues at work. try to find out HOW people like to be recognized and give it to them in that format. Do they like a few words of praise? Monetary rewards? public recognition? A few words of praise in front of others has extraordinary impact for most people.
