What Fires You Up?

12/09/2002

 

Acts of Kindness

This week I found myself the recipient of many random acts of kindness! Ok, maybe I was just looking harder to notice them, but all around I saw good things, however slight, that people did or showed. There is a quote I remember from somewhere -"People may not remember what you did, but they will remember how you made them feel".
Needing some inspiration, I typed the following phrases into my Alexa search: 'the kindness of friends' and then 'the kindness of strangers'. Now THIS is an experience I highly recommend! I spent several fine and pleasant hours exploring site after site of inspiration and charm. NONE of them were tied to a religious aspect and ALL were connected by the concept of passing along the practice of daily Random Acts of Kindness in your life.
One site is by the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, where I have submitted a Kindness site for inclusion there. It allows 500k space to create a site they host for you. If and when the approval comes, I shall share the site address with you. The site you create is incredibly easy, for they give you five pages and prompt you for what you would like to include, in the style template you select. Absolutely no experience or fancy computer skills required! When you visit the site, be sure to look at the "Inspiration" section and the "Health Benefits of Kindness" section. Wow, if this doesn't bring you up when you are low, I'd be surprised.
The other main site I found was for a global group of strangers that celebrate and share diversity - The Raok Group. The Random Acts of Kindness Group numbers over 5,500 sites now! Web rings connect them through different special interest areas, such as Pet Rescue, environment, politics, gay rights, social concerns, Peace Movement, etc. One homemade site in a web ring, Joelle's Page, was begun through a friend creating a memorial page for a woman whose husband had suddenly died in a car accident. Through it, the pages connected and connected to delightful shared sentiments and images - quilts, cats, and more. A quilt made for Joelle by her online friends in the Figure Skating world is now on my desktop as wallpaper!
I found a Canadian site that journaled a 3 month adventure of 4 young men who set out traveling in a motor home to go to as many Canadian communities as possible to commit Random Acts of Kindness! Their story is told in ExtremeKindness, a website devoted to the Extreme Kindness Tour 2002. (Our Fired Up Friend, Peace and Love and I happened upon such a group near Calais, ME a few years ago. Another homemade site is called Tammy's Kindness Lair. She has a tribute page to her Submariner husband who is now shipping out for duty abroad. She's got a support group online for those who have "sailor husbands" on tour, and sponsors a Peace Movement page, with connecting links to other great groups in her web ring memberships

It doesn't have to be a holiday time at all to enjoy the practice of Daily Random Acts of Kindness. None of the sites I visited were commercial sites, none were religious-oriented, all were ***** (*there must be a better word than "heart-warming). Peace, Love and Hugs, cobalt

BJ 12/09/2002 06:53:00 AM