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I love the pay it forward campaign!
I've been playing along for a decade or more and I think it's just wonderful.
I agree that simple acts of kindness shouldn't need a catchphrase but in cold hard reality, they actually sometimes do. A random act of kindness is very often met with hostile suspicion, people looking for 'the scam'. The pay it forward campaign gave a simple explanation that could make people feel happier about accepting kindnesses from strangers.
I think also that pay it forward doesn't have to be a collection of pre-planned 'gifts' but rather an attitude to take you through the day.
For example;
I spend far too much of my life stuck in London gridlock, ferrying my disabled daughter from A to B. I hate it, it makes me grumpy and mean.
Now I play my pay it forward game.... the first chance I get, I let someone out with a flowery wave and a dazzling smile....then I watch as, almost every time, they let someone out within the next couple of minutes and so on. It's a simple and tiny thing but now there are three of us smiling instead of having roadrage.
Of course, every now and then you get a complete git that spoils it but hey, humanity is flawed right?
For me, paying forward has become a bit of a rebellion. When headlines are so depressing it helps me to feel less tainted if I can do some tiny, hopeful thing to buck the trend. That extra cup of coffee for the homeless man, passing on a pay and display ticket at the car park....no skin off my nose but a way to communicate in a positive way with a stranger. We need that in a world of personal technology and no eye contact.
When you comit an act of anonymous and random kindness the hope is that it will spread like ripples in a pond and there is plenty of evidence to show that very often it does.
I've been playing along for a decade or more and I think it's just wonderful.
I agree that simple acts of kindness shouldn't need a catchphrase but in cold hard reality, they actually sometimes do. A random act of kindness is very often met with hostile suspicion, people looking for 'the scam'. The pay it forward campaign gave a simple explanation that could make people feel happier about accepting kindnesses from strangers.
I think also that pay it forward doesn't have to be a collection of pre-planned 'gifts' but rather an attitude to take you through the day.
For example;
I spend far too much of my life stuck in London gridlock, ferrying my disabled daughter from A to B. I hate it, it makes me grumpy and mean.
Now I play my pay it forward game.... the first chance I get, I let someone out with a flowery wave and a dazzling smile....then I watch as, almost every time, they let someone out within the next couple of minutes and so on. It's a simple and tiny thing but now there are three of us smiling instead of having roadrage.
Of course, every now and then you get a complete git that spoils it but hey, humanity is flawed right?
For me, paying forward has become a bit of a rebellion. When headlines are so depressing it helps me to feel less tainted if I can do some tiny, hopeful thing to buck the trend. That extra cup of coffee for the homeless man, passing on a pay and display ticket at the car park....no skin off my nose but a way to communicate in a positive way with a stranger. We need that in a world of personal technology and no eye contact.
When you comit an act of anonymous and random kindness the hope is that it will spread like ripples in a pond and there is plenty of evidence to show that very often it does.
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