The Sentence For Committing Acts of Kindness? Good Karma

kindness lane (Photo credit: sensesmaybenumbed)

Kindness is one of the few things that rarely happen accidentally.  Being unintentionally nice to someone else just isn’t one of those things that occur.  Sure, sometimes you’re driving a little slow and some yahoo pulls out in front of you, then waves like you’ve just done him a favor, or you stop to give one last check down your grocery list and some woman dashes into the line you were aiming for then turns and says thank you but, in general, kindness is a deliberate, intentional act that we make a conscious effort to perform.

UN-kindness, on the other hand, is often performed unconsciously.  Many times we are rude, hurtful, and inconsiderate without even registering that it has occurred.  The woman walking into Macy’s in front of you didn’t deliberately shut the door in your face, it just didn’t occur to her to hold it open for you.  That guy on the freeway didn’t deliberately block you from merging into traffic, it never occurred to him to let you over in the first place.

So often, and I am guilty of this myself, we instantaneously assume that the other person is deliberately being inconsiderate but, more often than not, that’s not the case at all.  As technology has increased, so has our level of self-containment.  As everything around us speeds up, our ability to keep up has decreased, forcing our attention to the next appointment, the next errand, the next thing that has to get done, leaving little room in our thoughts for the here and now, which includes the people who are in that here and now with us.  We’ve stopped seeing people as neighbors, and started seeing them as obstacles, slowing us down in the sojourn from point A to point B.

Sure, there are moments when where you are going is more important than the people around you.  When your wife is about to give birth in the back seat of your car, for example.  Or when your kid somehow managed to fall through your glass coffee table and slice his leg open.  These things are emergencies.  They are the times when kindness and courtesy should be suspended for the good of another human life, and they are acceptable moments to be less than polite to your fellow man; however, being late for a meeting, being preoccupied with your schedule, being tired… these things are just not acceptable reasons to treat your fellow man with indifference.

It is so easy to become a kinder, more considerate person.  If you leave your house early enough that you’re not rushing to work, then you won’t be preoccupied with being late, so you’ll be able to leave a safe distance between you and the car in front of you, which means you’ll be able to let the car on the off-ramp merge with traffic without going into a panic about the time you’ve lost, and when you get to work a few minutes early, you’ll probably get a closer parking spot, which means you won’t be running through the door to be at your desk before your boss does the morning head-count, which means you will notice the woman coming through the door behind you with her arms full, and hold the door open for her, maybe even offer to help her because you have an extra minute or two, and you’ll get to your desk on time, un-frazzled, and with a smile on your face.

Now, here’s what you didn’t know:

The space you left between you and the car in front of you actually prevented the accident you would have been in this morning when he pulled out in front of you anyway because 50 cars had already passed without letting him merge, and he was furious and determined to get onto that highway, and the woman you held the door for?  She was the regional personnel manager who was at your office to make cut-backs on employees.  When you held the door for her and offered your assistance, she remembered you and, although your job was one of the ones on the chopping block, she decided to find room in the budget to keep you because you were considerate, on-time, calm and helpful- which were things the company values in their employees.

The point of this fictitious story is this:  we never know how our kindnesses will come back to us.  We never know what we are putting into motion by taking that extra moment to pay attention to the people around us and not being too busy to be kind.  Don’t allow yourself to become so wrapped up in the clock that you steamroll over the people who are sharing that moment in time with you, because that will come back to you, too.

Best of all?  Kindness is free.

I’d like to challenge each of you to deliberately practice kindness and consideration toward those around you for 24 hours; to take one full day and:

1. Leave the proper distance between you and the car in front of you when on the highway (if you don’t remember from driving class, the proper distance is one car length for every 10 mph of driving speed- i.e. 60mph = 6 car lengths).
2. Hold the door open for the person coming through behind you, even if it means waiting a few seconds for them to reach you.
3. Offer to help someone who is obviously struggling, whether it’s with groceries, files, or just trying to reach something on the top shelf.
4. Smile at every cashier that helps you, and wish them a good day when your transaction is over.
5. Smile at children you pass, and if they smile back, make a funny face to make them laugh.
6. Let someone have the good parking spot near the front of the lot.
7. Let someone over, or let someone merge on the highway.
8. Let someone with less items than you in front of you in line.
9. Say you’re sorry if you’ve done something inconsiderate, even if it was an accident.
10. Let someone else go first at an intersection.
11. Let the other person go first when your paths cross while on foot.
12. Do a chore no one else wants to do (either at home or in the office) without asking if anyone wants you to do it.  Just do it without saying anything.
13. Step back and allow someone else to go through the doorway first.
14. Say ‘Bless you’ or ‘Gesundheit’ if someone sneezes, even if you don’t know them.

There are many more things you can do to incorporate kindness into your lifestyle.  With the exception of 1, 3, 6, and 12, I do all of these every chance I get (I can’t be perfect, you know, lol!), because I like to think it makes the world a better place for someone else, even if just for that moment.

1. What are some of the things you do (or would like to start doing) to add a little kindness to someone’s day?
2. If you try the 24 hour challenge, what were the results?

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