I came across Teal Swan’s You Tube video which talks about “Random Acts of Kindness.” In this “Ask Teal” video she spoke about bringing in kindness to all. What was so interesting was that it was effortless! She spoke about just doing 1 kind thing a day for 1 week. This “random act of kindness” could be something as simple as letting a car go ahead of you, letting a person with one item go ahead of you in line at the grocery store or just simply holding a door open for another. By imitating such behavior toward others, this will hopefully cause the recipient to “be kind” to someone else! Her thoughts about performing “kindness” were so inspiring that I knew I wanted to take this challenge! I did more research on the internet and I found so many wonderful acts of kindness that people where performing. I was amazed by the many posts and videos that I encountered.

The Random Acts of Kindness that inspired me were:
1. A mother challenged her 6 year old daughter and she came up with the following:
-Giving Oreo’s to the mail man, which in turn, he sent her a wonderful note saying that it made his day!
-Taking some of her old books and giving them to a children’s hospital so they could enjoy them too!
-Going to the Dollar store and leaving 4 quarters in a plastic bag with a note taped up in the toy section. She wanted another child to be able to buy a toy so they could play with it like she does with hers!

2. A person left a bag of microwave popcorn and note taped to a Redbox machine. They wanted another person to enjoy a wonderful “movie experience.”

3. A person in the Starbucks Drive Thru paid for the car’s order behind them.

4. A child left a few quarters in the bubblegum machine for someone to have some gum.

5. A person left money in the soda machine so that the next person had a free soda.

Since I was so inspired, I challenged my sister and 4 of my friends to take the challenge with me!

Here is what I did for the week.

1. I gave some money to a person at the grocery store. She was being rung up at the checkout line when she discovered that she didn’t have enough to pay for her food. She was so grateful because she didn’t have any more money to spend. She cried and told me how blessed she was because this was her kid’s dinner for that night!

2. During the week, I let several cars go ahead of me on the freeway. What’s another car or two!!

3. I bought a homeless man a hamburger so he was not hungry anymore.

4. I made some cutout cookies and put them in cute bags and handed them out to people so they would have a yummy “treat” that day.

5. I sent a handmade card to a friend to cheer her up. In the card I told her how much she has enriched my life.

6. I burned some songs to a CD for a friend so she could enjoy them when she was working out. I was trying to inspire her to continue on her “healthy way of life” and the songs really gave her motivation to work even harder!

7. I bought $10.00 worth of scratch lottery tickets and handed them out.

I noticed that as I was progressing through the week, I was just so happy! This challenge was definitely enlightening me and opening my eyes of what little kindness can do to others! I now want to “continually do more” for others, as well as, inspire them! This is not a challenge for me anymore, it has become “a way of life!” I also want to mention that when I was performing any random act of kindness, I let the recipients know the challenge I was taking so they in turn could “pay it forward” to someone else. I am now going to challenge you by asking you to partake in an effort to produce more kindness in your “neck of the woods.” Get creative and inspire others to take the challenge with you! Start spreading a wonderful movement of “kindness” in your area! Remember, it only takes one person to start changing the world, are YOU that person?