Random Acts of Kindness

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, but Endo was getting the best of me. It was a disappointment because I had plans to go bowling and do a movie night with some girlfriends.

But in the spirit of focusing on the positive, I'm going to tell you about a project I'm super pumped about in my Positive Psychology class. The idea is that a bunch of random anonymous acts of kindness can improve overall quality of life and happiness. So we're supposed to do a random act of kindness and then write a short summary about it and how it made us feel.

Insert research here:

What Will Make You Happy: http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-research/1457-10-things-science-says-will-make-you-happy

Pay It Forward: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200607/pay-it-forward

Now I know the whole pay it forward movies and buying the cup of coffee for the person behind you at starbucks is kinda cliche, but it really is a legit thing, and something simple we can use in our everyday lives. It doesn't even have to be monetary! My project isn't and I'm still super pumped about it!

Notice though, that If you do this just with the intention of "I'm doing this to improve my quality of lie" it defeats the purpose. I mean, we spread kindness for OTHER PEOPLE, not for ourselves. We do this to try to make the world a more unified and harmonious place where people actually care about each other. A simple side effect of that is that it makes us feel good. So try to keep that in mind.

What I decided to do for my project stemmed off something that happened to me about a week ago. I was at Walmart buying my fiber chews and someone had put a coupon beneath the bottle. This is something I have also seen my dad do, if he has an extra coupon that he's not going to be using. And It made my day, not because I saved $2, but because a stranger was kind and did that for the next person to come along.

So I went online and clipped a whole bunch of coupons and into the newspaper and clipped a whole bunch more coupons. Then to Walmart and by God, I spread coupons all over the place.

It was simple, it saved people money (I liked to focus on dipers and things like that in the hopes that I would catch a single mother out there) and it made me happy! It gave me something to do with my time that I felt was quality and worthwhile.

I'm thinking about making this a weekly thing and integrating it into my life. Why don't you guys try the same thing? Comment below if you want and tell me about your random act of kindness and how it made you feel!