Acts of Kindness| Week Fourteen
Last week I decided to go to my public library. I hadn't been there in a while and needed to find a book. While I was there, I noticed something. When I walked in, one of the walls was covered in sticky notes. This caught me off guard and I stopped to see what this was all about. It turns out, the sticky notes are a part of something called "One Million Acts Of Kindness".
The center of the display reads "can the world change for the better? What if we start small, by helping and encouraging each other in small ways? Throughout April, share your story of everyday kindness here. Watch to see how far the kindness will spread- your ideas may inspire others to live a more compassionate and thoughtful life!" - One Million Acts of Kindness
I was amazed to read all of the responses. There were amazing ideas. I loved seeing little kid's just legible writing on the sticky notes. Every idea was rooted out of kindness, yet blossomed into something unique and different from the next. There were notes that read "smile at a stranger", "hug a friend", "donate toys", "make food for someone" and "do the dishes". What I loved was reading how we can interpret this meaning and mission a million different ways.
I was thinking about this for the duration of my visit. I stopped into the kids section and as I was leaving, I saw another kindness wall.
While there aren't as many notes on this wall, I feel like this is just as impactful. These are all ways children thought of becoming selfless and spreading love and kindness around. As I took this photo, a little girl and her mom were at the table in front writing their note. The little girl was having difficulty and was telling her mom how frustrated she was. Assuming she needed help writing or taking the piece of tape off the roll, I smiled to myself. She couldn't have been older than three or four. She surprised me and told her mom that she's frustrated because she want to do more than "one million kindnesses". She was having difficulty wrapping her head around the fact that people need to be reminded to love one another and to be kind and helpful.
This stayed with me the rest of my day, and leading into the weekend. Why is it that we need these reminders? What happened to going out of our way to be kind to others? Oftentimes we become stuck, doing only what needs to be done, in order to survive.
I don't know about you, but I want to become more like this little girl. I want to practice kindness like I have never practiced it before. I don't want to have to think of the last time I did something for others, when I see a poster walking down the street or a campaign in the library. I want to be able to think right away of the good deed I did and the people I was able to help.
This Week's Challenge:
One Million Acts of Kindness is about promoting change in the world, no matter how small or larger. Go out of your way to show kindness to someone. Smile at strangers when you're walking down the street- you never know who needs it. There are million and one ways we can practice this act. If you're having trouble thinking of something to do, get your friends and family involved!
If you're wanting to take it to the next step, make a kindness wall of your own!