Random Acts of Kindness: How to Make It a Better World

By The Editors of Conari Press

Random Acts of Kindness ─ Inspirational Stories

Make a commitment to spread kindness wherever you go. Being kind doesn't cost anything, but it can mean the world to those around you.

What if all of a sudden everyone started performing daily good deeds? This inspiring collection presents true stories of people who've committed, received, and observed voluntary acts of kindness. Hearing their stories reveals how these simple, small acts of goodness can have a profoundly positive effect in the world. The true stories, thoughtful quotations, and suggestions for generosity in this book will inspire you to live more compassionately and be a kinder person.

Join the kindness movement. In 1995, a small group of people at Conari Press, including M.J. Ryan, Will Glennon, and Dawna Markova, came together around the idea that small gestures and simple acts can make a difference in people's lives. Thus, Random Acts of Kindness was born, but they had no idea how big this little idea would become. Soon, instead of the usual two or three letters from readers, they were getting bags of mail from readers submitting their own acts of kindness and stories of compassion. Now, twenty-five years later, over one million copies have been sold and it is a worldwide movement, with National Random Acts of Kindness Week, celebrated each February.

An inspirational gift of kind words. Sometimes the smallest gesture makes the biggest difference. This little book shows how to start —with the small, with the particular, with the individual —in order to make a difference in the world. It features:

• True stories about acts of kindness and generosity of spirit
• Suggestions for living more compassionately
• Inspirational quotes to get you started

Readers of motivational books and stories like Chicken Soup for the Soul: Random Acts of Kindness, A Pebble for Your Thoughts, I've Been Thinking…, or You Can Do All Things will love the encouraging, inspirational stories in Random Acts of Kindness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781642504200

The Editors of Conari Press

The Editors of Conari Press have produced the bestselling Random Acts of Kindness series, with over 1 million copies sold.

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Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2022, by Editors of Conari Press

Published by Conari Press, a division of Mango Publishing Group, Inc.

Cover Design: Roberto Nuñez

Layout Design: Carmen Fortunato

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Random Acts of Kindness: How to Make It a Better World

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on request.

ISBN: (p) 978-1-64250-419-4 (e) 978-1-64250-420-0

BISAC category code SEL021000, SELF-HELP / Motivational & Inspirational

Printed in the United States of America

For Anne Herbert,

the woman who started the movement

Foreword

When we were working on the Random Acts of Kindness campaign, it was an incredibly joy-filled experience. Our work was not just about helping the company or paying rent for the month—it suddenly really meant something. We were making the world a better place, one act of kindness at a time. There was electricity in the air, and we arrived at work each day to see what miracles had happened overnight while we were sleeping.

One day we knew everything had really changed, via the US postal service. Usually we only had a dozen or so pieces of mail: bills mostly, a few queries, letters from readers, or an order or two. One day, the mailman knocked and said, I need help here! He had bags of letters from people all over the country, many with suggestions of acts of kindness. There were tears of laughter as we sat down on the floor and tore open the envelopes, reading aloud from the letters. Some were in children’s big blocky letters (these usually had the best ideas of kindness) and others in elders’ careful script. We still treasure those memories of seeing the power of the human heart that day.

In a time when so many people feel powerless and unrecognized, when miserable things happen to wonderful people, there are moments when we must stomp our feet in indignation and outrage. But to balance all that, it’s important to remember all those people who have sustained our souls and remember that each of us is the culmination of an infinite number of improbable gifts from myriad nameless sources. Practicing random acts of kindness cracks the tough shell that begins to grow around our hearts each time we watch the news or experience another’s suffering. The circumference of who we are begins to swell full and ripe, and a longing to reach, to risk what can be possible, sprouts.

Brenda Knight and Dawna Markova

Preface

The Power of Kindness

It is a tragedy that in 2002 the mention of tragedy has itself become commonplace. So much has been said, so many flags waved since the heart of America was opened on September 11, 200l, that it seems almost opportunistic to mention it yet again.

And yet the events of that day are the new backdrop against which all our deeds, beautiful and kind, heinous or destructive, will now be silhouetted.

In such a world kindness is not a frill; it is a spiritual necessity. Indeed, where we once might have thought of random acts of kindness as charming, delightful, or even amusing, we cannot but see them now as the moment-by-moment, day-by-day acts of love that pierce the night sky with millions of pinpoints of light, the deed-by-deed creation of a world of hopeful possibilities—indeed, of love.

For what we now know in the cells of ours souls—what we have always known, but often forget—is that every corner of our universe—and of our ourselves—is claimed by either goodness or ungoodness, by that which springs from love and gathers us all closer into the basket of life, or that which rises from unlove and makes our journey an arduous ordeal; and that for love to prevail we must practice it by teaspoonfuls, and bucketfuls and floods, in nanoseconds and minutes, week after week, for our entire lives.

The practice of kindness is the daily, friendly, homely caring form of love. It is both humble—a schoolboy bringing his teacher a bouquet of dandelions—and exalted—a fireman giving his life to save someone else’s. Kindness is love with hands and hearts and minds. It is both whimsical—causing our faces to crack into a smile—and deeply touching—causing our eyes to shimmer with tears. And its miraculous nature is such that the more acts of kindness we offer, the more of them we have to give, for acts of kindness are always drawn from the endless well of love.

Kindness is twice blessed. It blesses the one who gives it with a sense of his or her own capacity to love, and the person who receives it with a sense of the beneficence of the universe. Kindness heals us, because it reminds us of our oneness, allows us to see ourselves in one another’s eyes, to remember that eyes themselves are a miracle, that seeing is a gift, and that the other, no matter who he or she may be, is, in one way or another, a perfect reflection of ourselves.

The power of kindness is immense. It is nothing less, really, than the power to change the world.

Daphne Rose Kingma

————— • • • —————

Fear grows out of the things we think; it lives in our minds. Compassion grows out of the things we are, and lives in our hearts.

—Barbara Garrison

Introduction

Living from the Heart

I don’t care what anyone else says. These are awful times. There is tension in people’s faces. Children wear bruises and forget to laugh. People sleep under black plastic garbage bags and carry their worlds in shopping carts. Everyone shrugs and calls it compassion fatigue. Anxiety and despair swirl around in our minds like discarded newspapers with headlines that tell us to remain on continual alert, ind efinitely.

Our souls are leaking. We are in a recession, and we are receding. We are not moving toward anything. We are receding away. Away from what terrifies us. Away from not enough. Away from chaos. Away from poverty. Away from random acts of violence, from hurricanes and drive-by shootings and child abuse and homelessness and aids and drug wars. We are both clutching each other and moving away at the same time. This little book you hold is more needed than ever.

When I was quite small my immigrant Russian grandmother told me that people in this country give from the wrong place. When you give from here, she declared, pointing to her solar plexus, it’s like keeping a ledger book. That’s not giving, that’s trading. I give you three so you give me three. I sweep the floor so you carry the bundles.

She pushed the wisps of white hair out of her eyes with the back of her red hands, shaking her head back and forth, tsk-ing her tongue against her

Reviews for Random Acts of Kindness

[bohemiangirl35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This collection of "quotable quotes" and super short stories contains some of the usual quotes you expect to find, but also some "new" ones; at least they were new to me. The book is a very quick read and worth it for the unique and inspirational nuggets within. Thank you to Linda for sharing.

[whisper1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When I was very young I wondered how "older" people became so cranky and so disenchanted with life. Now that I've crossed the threshold of becoming one of the "older" people, I sometimes marvel that it is a miracle if, after weathering so much, we don't naturally become cranky.After a post Christmas crisis with a few of my partner's family members from his father's side -- those on his mother's side are lovely, kind, sensitive and considerate -- I realized that I no longer want to be around nasty, negative people. I felt abused and beaten down, and after tolerating this behavior for far too long, I said enough, and now I refuse to be around these two incredibly unkind and wicked folk.When I found this book, it seemed to be just what I needed, ie, a reminder that there are many who are kind and dare to pay a price for their kindness. And, I do firmly believe that there is a price we pay if we are kind and sensitive.At the risk of waxing philosophically, I'm going out on a limb to say that far too often in life it seems that the negative, snippy, back stabbers blithely go through life without paying a price for those them harm.While some of the quotes and stories in this book are trite, there are gems of wisdom scattered throughout. In remembering those who have helped me along the way, I quote the following:"One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay "in kind" somewhere else in life."Anne Morrow Lindberg"When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people."Abraham Heschel

[kellyholmes-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A neat idea, and a sweet book.