February 17th may be the day officially set aside for committing random acts of kindness, but we can, and should, be perpetrators of kindness everyday! The funny thing about kindness, especially random acts thereof, is that it serves not only to cheer the direct recipient of your kindness, but also makes your own day a bit brighter. And one act of kindness will often lead to another, and then another, until kindness itself gains momentum, creating an all consuming wave of do-gooders. Should you feel inspired to set such a wave of warm fuzzies in motion, here are some ideas to get you started:
1. Send a Thoughtful Gift Basket to a Nursing Home Resident
Begin by calling your local nursing home and asking a nurse to identify some residents who do not receive regular visitors. The nurse can give you an idea of what types of goodies a resident might like to receive in a gift basket. If you are lacking the time and resources to put together a gift basket yourself, you can select from among a great variety of flower, cookie, fruit, and even specialty gift baskets on-line. And in ordering a gift basket online, you will have the option of sending it anonymously to the nursing home so as to commit a truly random act of kindness! Make sure to follow up by visiting the nursing home and spend some time walking, talking, and reading with the residents. It will be heart-warming to realize what an important impact your kindness has had on both you and the residents!
2. Help your Children Write Letters of Thanks to their Teachers
The days of showing appreciation for a teacher with a shiny apple are not long gone! Send your kids off to school with hand written thank you notes and bright apples for their overworked teachers. Such a simple act of kindness will go a long way; in brightening their teachers’ days you will also be enhancing the classroom atmosphere for your children and their classmates. Your children will come home from school in high spirits, and that is bound to make your day as well!
3. Stop to Lend a Hand to a Person in Need
If you set off in the morning with this objective in mind, you will be amazed at how many opportunities to help someone in need you pass up everyday. We encounter such situations so often that we have become accustomed to overlooking them! Just think of your morning commute to work—there is the car stalled on the side of the road; the woman fumbling for change at the bus stop; the elderly man loitering outside the coffee shop in hopes of a hot cup—if you look for occasions to lend a hand, you will find them everywhere. You will also discover, in pulling over to help a stalled car, in offering some spare change, or in sharing a cup of coffee, that your perspective on your own community will be positively enhanced.
4. Smile and Say Hello
The simplest way to really improve your, and everyone else’s, day is to sincerely smile at and greet people you interact with in your everyday affairs. Compliment a unique hairstyle; ask how the cashier is holding up on such a busy day. Make an effort to connect with all the people you encounter in a given day—a simple smile and kind word will have a profound effect!
Put these ideas into practice and you will soon find that everyone around you—including yourself!—seems a little more cheerful; eventually random acts of kindness will begin to seem a little less random and become a part of your daily life!
Allison Mueller is a consultant for
href="http://www.99giftbaskets.us/index.html">99GiftBaskets.US,
the home of
href="http://www.99giftbaskets.us/Fruit_Baskets-Fruit_Gift_Baskets-Fruit_Gifts.html">fresh
fruit baskets,
href="http://www.99giftbaskets.us/Wine_Gift_Baskets-Wine_Baskets-Gourmet_Baskets.html">fine
wine baskets and delicious gourmet meals.
