Rules

What qualifies as an act of kindness? How long should it take? Can it involve animals or just people? Does helping the environment make the cut? How about donating money? I definitely need some rules.

I’m thinking of a minimum time requirement. My worry is that, as the year goes on and the days are busy, the commitment to this project will fade. Then I will chalk up the mere act of smiling at the person next to me waiting to check out groceries in the kind act column. On the other hand, if this project motivates me to smile rather than knock that person over so I can check out faster, that’s a good thing. So time is out.

Animals are definitely in because my younger son absolutely considers them on an equal par with humans. He may actually like them a tad bit more.

I picked up a garbage bag full of trash along the road yesterday, so the environment is included.

As for money, it feels too easy sometimes to write a check rather than to come face to face with the need. I am more likely to respond to a plea for money than I am to a plea for volunteers. Yet often money is the greatest need. “Money makes the world go around” is a truth in life.

The past few years around the holidays in December, my husband and I have taken our boys shopping to buy gifts to donate. They each pick out toys for someone around their age. This year I noticed more and more requests for gift cards rather than actual gifts. Purchasing these instead of actual presents did not seem as such a concrete lesson, so we stayed with our tradition. Looking back just a few months now, it seems that we had gotten off track of our original intent. If you want to help someone by giving a gift, give what is needed even if it is not necessarily what makes you feel good.

Money is in. Today, I will write and mail a check help families who are victims of the recent floods.