Let's Skip The Randomness & Practice Kindness
HIGH HOPES
A Reminder To Be Kind
PARADOXICALLY, IT'S RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS WEEK, when we are urged to perform random good deeds.
The deliberateness of designating a week to kindness seems contrary to randomness, but perhaps necessary in an era when the maxim "every man for himself" seems writ large in the world.
The admonishment became a fad in the 1980s after the phrase was coined by California writer Anne Herbert in 1982. The mantra was then turned into official proclamation when the 103rd Congress officially dubbed this week National Random Acts of Kindness Week in a bill passed in 1994.
Congress is good at making proclamations, but if they wanted to be really kind they would quit their partisan flesh-picking and find some way to provide healthcare for the one in six Americans who don't have insurance.
That would be real kindness.
And how does one even practice "random kindness" anyway? Hop on a bus, close your eyes, spin around and then offer your services to the first person you touch?
The word random is a misnomer in this mission. Let's just pledge to be kind. Open the door for old ladies and new moms, help neighbors with groceries, rescue stray cats, skip the wisecracking about Megan Fox's thumbs. (Admittedly, that will be hard.)
“It’s really just about spreading kindness with no expectation of any return,” Jason Marsh, Editor-in-Chief of Greater Good Magazine, told Tonic.
One small favor that used to be on everybody’s list of small kindnesses was to feed strangers’ expiring parking meters. But even small deed has been eliminated in Chicago where parking meters have been replaced with electronic boxes that print out timed parking permits. The permits have to be displayed on dashboards, and giving the gift of free time could result in you getting arrested for tampering with a stranger’s car.
A dozen years ago Oprah did a show on the topic during which she paid the road tolls for strangers in the cars behind her and videotaped their reactions. That made for great television, but it also helped that Oprah was doing the deed and there video cameras catching every moment. There’s no surer way to ensure people put their best face forward than to videotape their every move.
The real test of kindness comes when no one is watching.
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