Some Christmas Kindness 12-24-2011

The CMU-Specific Karma Diary has a second post!  Way to go, my fellow nerds!

Often times, people go about their daily lives and rarely take notice to those who work to make our lives easier, better, and safer.  It's not that we don't care; it's just that we often take these actions for granted.  For my random act of kindness, I wanted to show that we actually do notice, and we do appreciate their hard work.  My apartment complex has a group of security guards who keep our apartment safe and offer help to those who need it.  They generally stay in a guard shack by the entrance of the garage.  It's always nice to walk home and see a guard welcome you back in with a smile and wave.  I thought it would be nice to return the favor to them by showing my appreciation.  Keeping with the holiday spirit, I put together a gift basket full of Asian goodies for the guards to share and wrote them a Christmas card telling them thanks for all that they do.  It's not much, but I hope this gesture shows them that their actions do not go unnoticed.

Warm wishes,

Lenny

12-13: Here's to the Brothers of Sigma

I am a very proud brother of the Pennsylvania Theta branch of Sigma Phi Epsilon, a national social fraternity.  Why am I so proud to be an alumnus?  Well, they emphasize being scholars, leaders, athletes, and gentlemen.  To me, that seems pretty good and kindness definitely fits in to the SigEp mission.

This holiday season, I decided that I would take advantage of the super low-cost of shipping with USPS and make some care packages for my fraternity brothers...especially those that I haven't been able to see in several years.  I made an epic amount of baked goods---gingerbread men, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cups, cupcakes, fudge, etc. and put them in the USPS "if it fits, it ships" boxes.

I shipped them off to four different clusters of SigEps, namely people in New York City, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, and Mississippi.  Every single one of my brothers is exceptionally amazing, but I decided to motivate my little brother in Mississippi with a karma diary.

Every day, my little brother is fighting to close the achievement gap through Teach for America.  As I mentioned before, I have a soft spot for teachers, so I definitely try to help in any way that I can.  Unfortunately, distance preludes some of the direct action that I'd like to take, so I'm mainly there for moral support.

To me, there is nothing more rewarding than doing a random act of kindness and reflecting on all of the privileges that we have.  Thus, I hope that he gets a similar joy from receiving the karma diary....and 5 lbs of cookies.

Happy Holidays!
-James

11-12: A MidWesterner's Take

I am a yinzer proper.  I have no qualms about admitting the fact the fact that I didn't realize that "slippy" wasn't a word until my second year of university.  I'm okay with it.  One thing that Pittsburgh teaches us, is that Philadelphia is a horrible, horrible place to be, filled with desolation and despair.

Unfortunately, I think that my childhood musings were incorrect.  Especially, as my karma diary is making it all over Philadelphia!  In our third venture of the city, we hear from "A" who is a Midwestern transplant that is fighting to bring those values to the East Coast.

Three cheers for A!  Three more for kindness!

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Nov. 12, 2011

I’ve given quite a bit of thought to the subject of kindness lately.  You see, a couple of years ago, I moved from the Midwestern United States to the East coast.  This was a very large culture shock for me, because it doesn’t appear that the same standards of kindness apply out here.  It just seems that kind acts such as holding the door open for someone and every day conversations with strangers are things that are just done in the Midwest.  I’ve been told that we seem overly friendly and perhaps, not genuine, but I think these every day small acts of kindness are so important that they should not be overlooked.

It is because of this, that I try to make sure I do kind acts every day; holding the door or elevator open for people, telling strangers on the street that their bags are open and they are about to lose all of their papers, etc. Sometimes, it seems important to spend hours talking to friends who are hurting or have problems that need a friendly and non judgmental ear.

However, this wonderful journal idea has inspired me to take this kindness one step further.  Tomorrow, I will help out my church’s religious education program in making Christmas ornaments for under privileged youth to receive books for the holidays.

-A

11/11/11: For Oneself

I'm not going to lie, I was a little bit worried that my karma diaries had died off and that everyone forgot about them.  But, then I got an amazing e-mail from Amy.

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“Kindness can easily get lost,” as James said — but especially kindness to oneself. As someone who is consistently dedicated to walking out of the door with a smile, sometimes the smile in my mirrored reflection at home can get lost. I still imagine all the ways I live privileged because others don’t, how when I eat too much, others must eat less. I’ve always seen myself so intricately connected to everyone and everything, like we are all trying to stay in balance in life’s game of tug of war. It was only until later in university where I realized how this is true on such a larger, economical scale, that when I buy cheap clothes, it’s because people in another country are providing cheap labor in conditions unfathomable to my suburban-grown mind. I know, I know, it all seems so cliché, to come from so much and dedicate your life to trying to help others in far away lands, it’s so easy to fetishize and idealize helping like that and forget those around you as well as yourself. But what I’ve come to realize the last couple years is that, yes, it is important to keep a larger, global picture in mind, but there is just as much needed on a local level. And even more than that, on a personal level. If one lives a life stressed, angry, out of balance, I truthfully believe it effects the entire world. It’s like the butterfly effect or a landslide, and it’s every moment in everything you do. Everything I do. So, today, when I woke up feeling that pit in my stomach where I just can’t face getting out of bed because of all the things that need to be done, all the people that are relying on me, all those pressures, all those moments in which I feel are speeding faster than that quick cusp of a moment where the sun dives beneath the skyline, I realized that this morning, I need to do something kind for myself. I woke up today, I made myself a beautiful breakfast full of vegetables and whole foods, I went to yoga, I came home and here I am: infinitely more centered and more connected to myself. And for me, that is my act of kindness that is most important act in my universe this moment.

To love others starts with loving oneself, to help others, starts with helping oneself. To be kind to the world is to treat oneself first with the same patience and kindness. We are all connect, kindness travels, it travels fast. I love you.

PS — creating three mores of these notebooks and will pass them on. Love ya, James!

Amy

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I am so impressed with Amy's action of self-kindness.  Too often we stress about things that are trivial.  Take Amy's advice: take a moment for yourself and smile. 

Oct 27: Karma Bum

Exciting news: my very first guest post from someone I don't know!  Amazing!

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I thought a lot about what to do, but in the end was inspired by Ms. Christine Fallabel (I think the girl could inspire a pile of dirt). She told me a story about a little girl who was recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.  The girl really wants to attend Camp Setebaid, a summer wonderland of sorts for kids with type 1 diabetes, but her family can't afford to send her.  The camp helps to teach kids how to manage their diabetes, but more importantly gives them a sense of community and makes them feel "normal" as a diabetic.

Chrissy is on a mission to raise the funds necessary to send this girl to camp, and I felt like I would take the opportunity to do my part.  I made the first donation towards sending this girl to camp, and I feel great about it.  

Keep the love and giving flowing brother.

Thanks for the inspiration,
Miles

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If you are interested in donating to Christine's endeavor, comment on her blog and she'll be happy to talk to you about it.  And for the next kind person, I look forward to hearing about your adventure!

October 19: For Coworkers

As I said in my last entry, campaign season is tough for the politicos scampering around your local neighborhood.  Since I am focusing on making my world a bit of a better place, I decided that I would continue to help the stressed.  More importantly, I was going to help the stressed stay healthy.  Kind of.

Because I get worried about how people eat, I decided to make a healthy lunch for my crew.  I tapped off that healthy lunch with an unhealthy, but pretty amazing designer cupcake.

Designer cupcake?  Yep, I schlepped over the money for Maggie and Molly's famous red velvet rose cupcakes and they were every bit as amazing as you might think.  I would never purchase such a luxury for only myself---and would never normally think to do it for work colleagues.  So, it was definitely an act of kindness.


















And, with cupcakes in my belly I sent off this karma journal to one of my amazing friends from Eastern Europe.  Let's see what this California girl can do for kindness.

Only good things,
James

Oct 15: For the Stressed...and the nerds.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to not work in politics, consider yourself lucky.  People involved in legislation are constantly worrying about the next step: are we getting supported? By whom? Can we win? What happens if we don't?

It's a lot of work, which could ultimately lead to a huge failure.  As you can imagine, it's pretty easy to lose faith and become uninspired.  About to succumb to this peer pressure, my supervisor needed some motivation.

So, I went to the most inspiring source I knew, Randy Pausch.  While I was at Carnegie Mellon, Randy gave his last lecture, which provided his unique perspective on really achieving your childhood dreams.  Watching the video is absolutely profound and you can see his passion for life, so close to the end of his own.

 Rather than simply sending her a link and a crumby message, I went out and purchased the book for her.  Inside, I wrote a soppy message about inspiration and a quotation from Mr. Pausch.

I wrapped the book, put some candy in the gift bag, and then hid the book on her door and waited for her to come into work.





I believe that she felt a moment of inspiration.  (If nothing else, she felt that her work was appreciated--and who doesn't like that feeling?) And I felt that the act of kindness was well-timed and definitely gave me precipice to send off my second karma diary.

For this new karma diary, I sent it off to a CMU friend. Carnegie Mellon is such an amazing and unique place, I wanted this book to only be a part of our lovely little bubble.  Hopefully, my friend will be able to rise to the kindness challenge and pass along the book to another member of our nerdy paradise.

Here's hoping kindness is more pressing than calculus,
James

Oct. 11: For Strangers

It's easy to be nice to friends. It's easy to be nice to beautiful people, funny people, amiable people. It's a lot harder to be kind to strangers. That being said, this project was a challenge for me. Sure, I'm nice. To my friends. But strangers? 

It's always nice to feel loved, and as a narcissistic society, it's always nice to feel beautiful. That is why, on October 11th, I decided to make 11 strangers feel beautiful. It's probably illegal, but I bought a pack of index cards, and artistically wrote, "you are beautiful", with different designs and pictures on each one. I left these notes in various places- in my neighbors' mailboxes, on empty desks at school, hidden underneath a napkin when a coffee shop goer abandoned her seat to go to the bathroom-everywhere. It may not have been a huge act of kindness, but I hope that my tiny bit of extra love helped to brighten someone's day. It sure did brighten mine.

Love and Kindness,

Christine 

October 6: For Teachers

Teachers have it tough.  No matter what they do, they always have more homework than their students or anyone else in a similar paygrade.  Between grading, differentiated instruction, and making up solid lesson plans; it can be tough to keep up.

That's where I stepped in.  One of my Denver friends is working as a combination 1st/2nd grade teacher here and she loves it.  But, because she is teaching two separate grades, it means that she has double the work to do...all in her second language.

My first large act of kindness was to make a set of posters and donate some school supplies to my friend's budding classroom.

It wasn't an exceptionally difficult task to do.  While watching horrible MTV Reality shows, I made two posters for her classroom.  I combined those with a few other things: children's books from Goodwill and school supplies and presented them to my friend.

She was pretty excited to get everything and I was equally as excited to give them to her.

Sending this kindness forward, I have sent my journal to a girl who is both beautiful inside and out, Christine.  Let's hope that she is able to add kindness to some lucky Philadelphian's day.

The Rationale

I believe in kindness.  I really do.

But, I also believe that I have rent to pay, to wash my clothes, to figure out how to date someone, and to  train for a marathon while living on a budget that can barely fit in a gym membership.

Sometimes kindness gets lost.

So, I've decided to do what every Type-A generation Y brat does: add kindness to my do-list. For the past few weeks I have added kindness to my life and have attempted to brighten the world around me.  Has my life changed?  Do I feel a sudden gratitude for life?  Not even close.  But, I do think that I have brightened a few people's days, and I find that awesome.

Looking to increase my impact, I decided to invite people into my little kindness project.  But, aside from creeping into people's houses and whispering sweet kind hypnosis in their ear, what could I do?

The answer came while running with a friend: challenge them and remind them of it non-stop.  Brainstorming, I decided that the best way to do this was to simply send a book.  A journal. A scrapbook.  A non-stop reminder. And challenge my friends to do one big act of kindness, write about it, and then send it off to someone else who they believe would do some kindness.

Thus, my little book has been purchased.  I have filled it with a letter to a person who I hope will do some kindness and will help will send it onward.

Though the book can't make it to every house in the world: the Internet certainly can.  So, I have also included a blog component for those who feel so inclined to do some kindness and share it with the broader world.

Let's find kindness, shall we?