Random Acts of Kindess

Make one person happy each day and in forty years you will have
made 14,600 human beings happy for a little time at least.
- Charles Wiley
Nicole and I recently began teaching a Yoga pilot project at Joseph Brant Middle School in Scarborough. One of the goals of this project is to bring the kids' awareness to the fact that they are all part of a big whole and that performing random acts of kindness not only benefit the recipient of their kindness, but ultimately themselves. The Teacher, Kris, told us about how her coffee was unexpectedly paid for by the person in front of her in the drive-thru line at Timmy's and how, she in turn, a few days later paid for the person behind her. She told us how both the initial act made her feel loved and valued and how her own act made her feel humble and kind.

So a few days later, I decided to practice what I was preaching and paid for the order of the person behind me at Timmy's. It felt GREAT! I was walking on cloud 9! When I saw an elderly lady seemingly stranded at the nearby CIBC Branch distraught because her Pension cheque had not come in yet and she didn't have any money to put gas in her car to get home, I didn't think twice about giving her a $20 bill. I felt elated? A hero and an angel all rolled into one.

Ok I know what you are thinking! Isn't talking about these random and anonymous acts of kindness kind of wrong. Hold on to your judgment people, there's more to the story.

Riding the RAK wave, I visited the same bank branch several weeks later, and who should be there? The same distraught woman, wringing her hands in worry over the fact that her pension cheque had not be deposited and she didn't have enough gas to get her home. I KNOW!!! The questions begin to spin through my mind, "Is she senile, or does she have Alzheimer's and she relives this difficult moment in her life over and over again?" or "Is she a sophisticated con-woman out making her living $20 at a time?" What ever the answer was I didn't really want to know, I didn't want to confront the truth. Probably because somehow I felt that the happiness that helping her gave me would be somehow tainted if I knew the truth.

Now that I am writing, I chuckle over the whole scenario. I guess it hasn't jaded me, I continue to ride the RAK wave, but now it's not really a conscience effort. It's true what they say "practice makes perfect". It continues to make me feel good...more human...more in touch with everyone around me. I hope that the recipients of my RAK will go out and do the same....and so on...and so on....and so on....

...Contemplations on the Social Networking Generation

After having met with a beautiful, youthful woman who is a social networking guru, I am struck with my age. Just like cassettes vs vinyl, CD vs cassettes, MP3's vs CD, virtual vs real have all been dividing lines between generations in the past. I feel I have come to the edge of my generational divide.

I felt as though my head was going to explode and I saw my business partner, Nicole's eyes glaze over. My thoughts began at one spot; using Social Networking as a means of building our business and by the end of the hour, if you could map my lines of thought, it would look like a sea anenome!

I was introduced to a whole new vocabulary and I was amazed at the ease of our Guru's ability to detail how all the different networks could be linked together, how they could all be updated in one click on a computer or from my cell, how they could be used to increase awareness of what Nicole and I do at the studio and how they could be used to simultaneously widen and tighten our East Village community.

And now as I write this entry, I gaze at my children and realize that ALL this will be second nature to them. I will seem as out of touch to them as my parents seemed to me when email came to town. Especially since in the back of my mind I am still asking "Does everyone really need to know where I am and what I am doing every moment of everyday?". BTW the answer is "Yes, yes they do"