Random Acts Of Kindness

Even if Dick Dastardly were to be walking up the meat isle in Sainsbury’s and was asked by an elderly person to reach onto the top shelf for a pack of chicken liver for her he would have done it. It wasn’t a huge thing that I did for another person this morning, but I was there to help so I did. It made the lady smile and it made me smile. It gives me a fuzzy warm feeling inside to help someone.

Also this morning, I decided to declutter the side shelf that had managed to breed piles of paper and it was about time that I went through it all. It had been a while. Amongst the papers included was an unopened letter from my opticians from 2021 and a Christmas card sent to the previous owner of our house. I walk past this pile several times a day and just haven’t done anything about it in such a long time. Maybe it’s been so long I’ve just become blind to it. I should’ve gone to Specsavers.

Also nestled in this pile of papers was an A4 sized written message from our eldest son, Jonas. Now, talking of making people smile, he managed to do this for my wife and I with his lovely words of love and kindness. It read…

” Whoever gets this I just want you to know I love you, from Jonas.”

We don’t know when it was written, but it had obviously just got sucked into this pile of papers at some point. But this random act of kindness that can be read by me, his mum or his little brother was a very thoughtful thing to do.

And what a wonderful world we could live in if messages of love, acts of support or a simple smile at random people were commonplace. I do fear, however, that we haven’t got enough of it in our lives.

My wife and I have had a rare opportunity to be at home together whilst the kids are at school and sort stuff out such as piles of paper and food shopping. But another practice that we like to undertake from time to time is to cleanse the rooms in the house. We do this by using a singing bowl and palo santo. Burning palo santo wood in your home is called smudging and, with positive intentions provided by your thoughts or affirmations, will cleanse your home of negativity and allow the positive energy to enter.

I’m very much a science based person. I like to see the evidence of something before I can ‘believe’ in it. Yet I seem to be drawn to this 15th century South America tradition. And although I am not religious in any way, I do find many spiritual traditions helpful. Maybe sometimes we don’t need experiments, statistics or numbers to tell us if something works. We just need to feel it. And I do feel the power of palo santo and a singing bowl when it comes to cleansing my surroundings.

I’m trying to be less angry. I’m tired of being annoyed at other pedestrians and road users. I want to be more patient towards people. I’m desperate to hang around supermarket isles just so I can grab another item that had been out of the reach of a shorter person. I want to do random acts of kindness.

But I’m unable to do that if my home isn’t giving me positive vibes. And it isn’t about the annoying pile of papers that need to be sorted out. It’s about finding my home to be a happy place to be. It is where I raise my children, prepare my work and create aspirations with my wife. A home needs positivity.

So maybe we all need to take a look at how the Incas and an 8 year old can create a happier environment in our own homes. Think positively, speak positively, cleanse positively and write positively.