Today I was in receipt of a random act of kindness.
I for one love doing random acts, but it is not done with the intention of being the recipient. It’s just because it is a nice thing to do and makes me feel good. And hopefully the other person too.
Being a recipient of a random act of kindness from a stranger is rather amazing. Truly amazing really. It made me cry, but good tears. It certainly brightened my day.
It made me think. We can live our lives in kindness or, well, not. But why wouldn’t you be kind?
I’ve always thought you always have a choice in how you react to something. Stuck in traffic, you can get mad and frustrated and rant at the drivers around you. Or you can decide this is a good opportunity to sing along to some favourite tunes at the top of your voice. Someone being rude or shouting at you can be treated with the same behaviour back. Or you can surprise them by doing something nice. (Talk about taking the wind out of their sails.) The key is, it’s always a choice how to react.
When something gets my back up, I really like to give pause and wait 24 hours before responding. (I wrote about this in another post – link). It helps calm the emotions and every time has made me respond in a better way, if at all.
And for those moments when I don’t have 24 hours, I give myself a moments pause to decide how I will react. It’s actually an act of kindness to myself. It certainly calms me, if only a little.
Some people go through the world angry at it, and some don’t. Such a waste, to my mind, to be angry all the time. Life is short, and can change in a heartbeat, so to squander time in anger is, well, just wasteful.
Random acts of kindness go a long way to lifting the spirits when down, whether giving or receiving. So why not try one today. You may never know if you cheered up someone having a bad day, but then that’s part of the joy of it.