Pay It Forward

Along the lines of my post about the power of simple acts of kindness, I wanted to share with you a beautiful quote I found in an unexpected place:

“Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy, or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s-syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example. Each smallest act of kindness—even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile—reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. .  . All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined—those dead, those living, those generations yet to come—that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.”  ~ Dean Koontz (From the Corner of His Eye)

It is true that prior generations affect us, and so will we affect future generations.   This applies to a global level as well as an individual level.  And so today, I challenge you to a random act of kindness to a stranger.  Anonymously buy the coffee for the person in line behind you.  Open doors for strangers.  Send a letter of thanks to a soldier.   You choose your act, but do it.  Today.  You deserve it.