Image Source: Good News Network
I’m sure a lot of people have made a lot of resolutions for the New Year.
To start fresh, stop drinking, be a better person etc. I’ve also made my own resolutions, but what compels me the most is the giving part about resolutions. How about adding to your list of resolutions, a random act of kindness.
Most of us are often too busy, too distracted or too focused to stop and take a moment to be kind to a fellow human being. The basis of service is opening your heart to lighten someone’s load or improve a situation.
Simple things like holding the door open, cleaning up someone else’s mess, letting someone cut you in line, or talking to a homeless person. I’ve done all of those before, and even though the other party’s don’t really notice what just happened, I walk away with the feeling of satisfaction. I do not see myself as a ‘Mother Theresa’.
Do at least one good deed a day. And see what moves you, then follow it. It is that simple. You don’t have to have a net worth of K50,000 to carry out good deeds.
“A gift of time is a treasure,” said Judith Orloff, Psychiatrist and Author of ‘Positive Energy’.
Everyone’s fighting a battle every day. Sometimes the battle takes a heavy toll on their lives, and sometimes it’s just a case of ‘I woke up on the wrong side of the bed’ kind of thing. But you certainly don’t know the kind of struggle the person you bumped into at the bus stop is facing. She might be battling a life threatening disease, or he might have just lost a loved one, or she might have a family to feed with only K10 in her pocket, you will never know.
The kindest of hearts may make another persons day better, and brighter. Like an advertisement for Thai Insurance that I stumbled upon. The advertisement had three simple words in the end: Believe in Good.
It seems really impossible to believe in good when we are constantly surrounded by bad things. When people are being robbed every day at the bus stops, or when people die in rural areas due to lack of health services. Our daily news is bombarded with all these negative reports of people being killed or harmed.
And, we ask how can we believe in good?
We all seem to forget the power of simple acts of kindness. The advertisement asks ‘what do we get in return?’ Nothing, we get nothing materialistic. No one will know what you did, you won’t be given an award or recognised. But the video also mentioned that what you will get in the end is emotions. Something money can’t buy. Witnessing happiness, feeling the love, reaches a deeper understanding. We can all make the world a better place. You don’t need a million Kina, only compliments and a helping heart.
