"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting." Mother Teresa This week is Random Acts of Kindness Week, so I thought it appropriate to explore the role that kindness can play in living our lives on purpose. Playing with this notion I came up with a deliciously paradoxical phrase, "random acts of kindness on purpose." How can an act of kindness be both random and still on purpose? Well, the act can be random because we don't necessarily know in advance when the opportunity to act kindly will arise, and at the same time it can be on purpose because when that moment does arise we thoughtfully and with full intention act in a way that is consistent with our life purpose. Since our life purpose arises from and is based in the attractive force of unlimited and unconditional love, it seems a natural place from which to choose to be kind. I received an unusual email this week from a well known internet marketer in which he shared that a friend of his and his friend's wife had been in a terrible auto accident and she had been killed. Since the marketer had lost his wife last year, he had a sense of what his friend was going through, and since his friend also did not have insurance, the email requested either a donation be sent or a purchase be made through his friend's web site. What an unusual email, I thought when I received it, as I deleted it. But though I deleted it from my inbox I couldn't delete it from my mind, so eventually I returned it to my inbox. Hmm, I thought, a random act of kindness yet on purpose. Here's just one of many opportunities I have to act kindly to someone I do not know, will probably never meet, yet can touch with a little kindness. So, I took the opportunity and sent a small contribution so this gentleman could bury his wife, and meanwhile gave a prayer of thanks for my own beloved wife and life companion, Ann. NOTE: Want to learn more about Random Acts of Kindness? Visit: www.actsofkindness.org/ 2005 Brad Swift of Life On Purpose Institute, Inc. This article can be reprinted freely online, as long as the entire article and this resource box are included. PPE 2-17-05 |
