Happy Random Acts of Kindness Day

Shout-out to Vanessa’s Social Media 2023 Calender for Well-being Bloggers! Her free digital calendar inspired today’s post.

Did you know that today is Random Acts of Kindness Day? I didn’t. Although the holiday has a positive message, it’s not associated with paid time off. You’re more likely to hear about it in a classroom that’s doing a unit study on Good Citizenship. That being said, we should be kind year-round. Still, there’s nothing wrong with an annual reminder that kindness should be extended outside of your inner circle. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture either.

A few months ago, I was at self checkout scanning some groceries (I prefer to scan and bag my own groceries). There was a family next to me that just finished paying for their groceries. The mother walked up to me and handed me some coupons. She said she noticed that I had some qualifying items in my cart. I was surprised and thanked her for the coupons. Her husband added that she does this all the time. They said good bye, and I finished scanning my items. I consider this a random act of kindness, because she didn’t have to act on her observation. I was happy to put a few dollars towards something else.

Sometimes, we fail to be kind. For example, Aldi has coin locked shopping carts. You need a quarter to unlock a cart. One day, I was bringing my cart back to the cart return. I noticed a woman standing in front of a cart and rummaging through her purse. I didn’t want to get in her way. So, I pushed my cart to a different cart return. As I walked back to my car, I noticed that she walked in to Aldi without one.

There are few ways this story may have ended. One, she found 25 cents in change and went in to exchange it for a quarter. Two, she asked a fellow customer for a quarter. Three, she decided to carry her groceries. I don’t know how her Aldi trip ended, but I could have shown a stranger kindness that day. From my perspective, she looked a little flustered. There’s a possibility, my small act of kindness could have helped. Who knows.

Today, let’s reflect on moments where strangers were kind to us, as well as, moments we failed to be kind. If one out weighs the other, consider making an effort to choose kindness in the future. We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it. Kind acts large and small make a difference.