"Anything you can do from the soulful self will help to lighten the burden of the world: anything. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity can cause to be set in motion." Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Research tells us that acts of kindness benefit not only the person bestowing the kindness and the person receiving the kindness, but anyone in proximity who witnesses the acts of kindness, and I think perhaps we do not even need to witness the kindness -- because the good energy of an act of kindness can flow out and onward benefitting us all. A smile given to someone who is having a less-than-perfect day, letting someone merge in front of you in traffic, holding the door for someone who is carrying something, acknowledging those people who may be disenfranchised: the poor, the people of other races/religions/genders, children, the elderly, passing along information that may benefit someone else (I think that I sometimes happen to come upon information that is given to me only to pass it on). The acts do not have to be big; as small acts of kindness can accumulate and impact the world. An act of kindness I like to do this time of year is to put new $20 bills in envelopes for those who have provided service to me: the refuse collector, the mail deliverer -- anyone who provides me a service but with whom I rarely interact. What acts of kindness do you do?
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