What the world needs, simply, is random acts of kindness to our fellow man. Now more than ever. In a hurting and angry world where violence is becoming more and more common and the care for human life has become so blase. For myself I have been amazed to see the reaction of a total stranger as I simply took the time to say, "have a good day" after I held the door open for them or they for me. I've actually have had people stop and look confused almost as if to say, "are you talking to me?" and a hesitation in saying, "thank you." Something so simple can make all the difference in someone's day and ultimately in the world. Kindness spreads.
On social media we find all sorts of news. Good. Bad. What's hot. What's not. And on and on. As I was going about my day, across the Twitter feed came something that caught my attention. A group of twenty-something best friends simply calling themselves @Paveitforward. I looked closer and found that they have taken it upon themselves to travel across the United States doing the very same thing I find myself trying to be mindful of doing, random acts of kindness. I give them all the applause in the world when most of the time we find people who are only caring about themselves or what they can get out of a situation. These out of the box thinkers, have taken their love of self and turned it outward doing selfless acts to make the world a little brighter. I took a chance and thought I'd send them a message to see what exactly it is that they do since they have a site on Facebook Pave It Forward, I'm sure explaining in more detail their experiences and things that they have done but since I am not a member of Facebook, the only way for me to find out, was to reach out. To my delight, I got a response and found that this young group of best friends from college devised a plan to take a month-long trip travelling the United States over this past summer looking for the opportunity to do something good. They made a list of challenges that they felt would be fun to do. Dividing them into categories, silly, adventurous, altruistic, random and adventurous. Then through their own efforts saved for and bought a used RV, money for travel expenses and then $1,000 to enable them to carry out their random acts of kindness. These best friends simply had a plan to bring kindness to total and random strangers through simple acts and followed through. They paid expired parking meters, paid parking tickets, gave care packages to the homeless, donated toys to children's hospitals and any place that they found a need and could do some good. Doing random acts and expecting nothing in return, they are simply trying to change the way people treat one another. All it takes is one. One candle can bring light into the darkness.
It is my hope that by sharing this story about these amazing individuals that I just happened to stumble across, it will inspire others like it has me. It truly is possible to change the world by one random act of kindness at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment