Just friggin pay it forward already, okay?

Weekly writing challenge

Small moments of kindness peek through our everyday lives, from your neighbors’ “Good morning!” to a surprise “I’ll take care of that for you” at the office. This week, we want you to explore what that kindness means to you, and share it with others.

Tuesday: Sorry readers, I’ve been taking time away to sew (a little) on my Grandmother’s fan blocks.  I really don’t like it as maybe I’m making the thread too long or something, but it just wants to knot all the time.  I don’t know how many blocks I have left to stitch the fan at the top, but let’s just say, “too many”. Ugh!

Wednesday: So, I looked at this prompt the other night, and the title is what I wrote, except for “already”, so I must have had something in mind, although, for the life of me, I can’t remember what.  I think part of it was my teenage daughter coming home and demanding my attention for whatever, teenage boy angst, needing something, wanting to talk about the progress of her room (which means painting, moving a dresser out, etc.)  Not sure what it was the caused me to save and close, so let’s see if I can revisit this topic with something worthy of reading.

Oops, it’s happening again!  Teenage daughter just came home, and it’s been a day of “talks”, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish this now.

Saturday early morning: Okay, so you know what, I give up.

What does kindness mean to me? This week, I have been experiencing a lot of people holding the door open for me when my hands were full.  I appreciate that, and I can hold the door anyone, man, woman or child.  Sometimes it is needed, sometimes not, but isn’t it just “nice”.

Regarding this prompt, I feel that kindness can be random, random acts of kindness (RAK), or straight forward giving (making diaper changing pads for my daughter for my granddaughter – working on that later today).  Sometimes, it means not writing that post you wanted to because your teenage daughter needs to talk about boy trouble – and being there for your kids no matter what it is they need even though you are missing your show, can’t take that long drawn out hot bath you wanted, or reading that book you have waiting.

Sometimes, it means spending the day at your father’s house, cause he’s 80 and doesn’t get many visitors, just because you know he welcomes the change (remember the post about time slowing down when you are doing something different?).

Sometimes, it means smiling at your boss when you’d rather spit at him, not because you are saving your job and not getting fired, but because you figure, maybe, just maybe, he’s having a bad day or he’s just a jerk but you don’t want to be (oops, did I say that?).

I think really, kindness, even though I am not a Biblical scholar and can hardly call myself even a basic Christian these days, that it really boils down to the famous Biblical saying, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Okay, so maybe I’m a potential agnostic, but the Bible does  have some truth.

And, when you do those things because that’s what you would want someone to do with you, it’s not because you are thinking that (I hold this door, because I’d want someone to hold my door), it’s because you see the genuine need of that person, or you really just want to be nice, spread some sunshine and kindness, I hesitate to say “out of the goodness of your own heart” but basically, that’s what it is.

Because you just don’t want to be Debbie Downer, and you know, deep in your heart of hearts, that doing something nice can be karmic (what goes around, comes around), but not always.

Basically, I choose kindness, most of the time (not always), because I’d rather be a positive force in the world. I’d rather be kind to my fellow man, not because of what I expect to receive in return, but because it just makes everyone’s day just even maybe a tad bit more pleasant.