| IN THIS ISSUE | Welcome
| Article One
| Book Review
| | A Little Inspiration |
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RECENT BLOGS
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Post Title Three
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Ah, it's summer, my favorite season. It means returning to my home on Lake Chautauqua in New York to see long-time friends and spend time with my Dad! (95 this year)
My life has a different rhythm during the summer months. The programs at The Chautauqua Institution are interesting and engaging and my days are much more structured than the rest of my year. Most people go on vacation to take it easy; mine is busy, sometimes hectic, and always interesting.
I'm happy to welcome all my new subscribers; there are more and more every month which is truly gratifying. I'm glad that you, my readers, are finding the 15 or 20 minutes it takes to read this newsletter worthwhile. Please feel free to forward it on to others who might find it interesting, inspiring or educational.
Are you a solo-preneur? A hobbyist who wants to start a small biz? Are you already self-employed? Act now to join all the Joyfully Jobless fans of Barbara Winter at the
JJ Jamboree in Austin, TX in October! Follow this link to find out more and possibly win a Jumpstart package! This workshop is going to be a blast! Ger more info on my blog.
Happy summer everyone!
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"About 3 paces away from me he said in a lovely, soft southern drawl, isn't it a beautiful fall evening? This weather is perfect. Just look up at that beautiful sky." Then he smiled, lightly touched me on the shoulder, and moved on.
That's all - nothing more. But his kind smile and touch, and the command to "look up" brought me out of myself and back into the world around me.
That's an excerpt from a personal essay I wrote for The Sun magazine in response to their call for stories about encounters with strangers. It's also my favorite example of being the recipient of a Random Act of Kindness.
In a world of never ending bad news, RAKs, as they are called, are the way we can each, one by one, create a better place to live. Scientific research at the Center for Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania has proven that being kind to another person makes us much happier than when we are self-focused.
It's the basis of all the world's religions and many secular belief systems. We all learned some version of it as children; It's known as The Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Kids today laugh at the hokeyness of the TV shows I grew up on like Leave it to Beaver, Marcus Welby, MD, or Lassie but all those families showed us examples of kindness and caring for each other, their neighbors and the strangers they encountered. Even The Fonz was always kind and loving in the end!
More recently, the movie Pay It Forward in which Trevor McKinney accepts a school assignment to help three people who will then be asked to help three more brought acts of kindness into the public conversation. (Put it in your Netflix queue if you haven't seen it.)
We live in communities but often in isolation. We no longer know our neighbors, we are admonished not to talk to strangers, and an offer of help is often greeted with suspicion. So how do we become kinder and thereby happier?
It's really not hard and it's a habit we all need to work on. It can be as small as smiling at a stranger you pass, helping an older person with their groceries, or leaving a book you are done with in a public place for someone else to enjoy. (Around here, we leave them at train stations.)
Here is a list to get you started:
1. Send an anonymous card to someone who needs cheering up.
2. Bake some cookies and take them to you local fire station.
3. Carry a bag with you and pick up trash along your favorite walking path.
4. Help an older person carry their groceries to their car or return their basket for them.
5. Buy a sandwich, chips and a drink and hand the bag to a homeless person.
6. Volunteer to help a neighbor search for a lost pet.
7. Send a small anonymous donation to a local charity.
8. Leave a vase of flowers from your garden on a neighbor's porch.
9. Let the harried person behind you in line go ahead.
10. Smile and nod or greet everyone you pass for a whole day.
Last summer I offered to carry a package for an elderly woman struggling to balance it on the handlebars of her scooter. During the walk to her home, we discovered that she had known my mother 60 years ago in college. She invited me to sit on her porch and have some tea while she regaled me with tales of their adventures as young women. My mom died when I was a young adult so I never got to hear these stories from her. That simple act of kindness brought me a wonderful gift!
Any kindnesses will make you feel better, some may bring you nice surprises like mine did, but most of all, life will be just a little bit better for everyone. And it's so contagious!
If your kids or grandkids are around this summer make Random Acts of Kindness a project to do with them. You'll all have fun and you'll be teaching them an important lesson.
Visit The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation website for free educational and community ideas, guidance, and other resources to kindness participants, stories or create your own community kindness site.
Another fun site is Help Others where you can order cards for the kids to hand out telling people to smile and then pass it on.
If you are having a poor me sort of day, go to either site and read some of the stories. I guarantee you'll come away feeling lots better and you'll be smiling!
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LEAP by Sara Davidson ¨The subtitle is "What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives?" so it looked like a natural for me to pick up. As I read the first couple of chapters I struggled to continue. Sara Davidson and I seem to have nothing in common. She is a Hollywood jetsetter who laments that at this stage of her life (after 60) she lives alone in a very expensive house because she couldn't find herself after her young lover left and her children grew up. Oh, and she couldn't find any work in her career of writing for TV shows. She had lost her identity! I know this is a valid mid-life experience but somehow her account comes off as really whiny.. She interviews lots of her famous friends like Carly Simon and Cheryl Tiegs to explain how we all go through mid-life losses and crisis. Puuulllease! I just couldn't quite relate!
But I kept on going because it was witty and entertaining and I was getting an inside look into the world of the rich and famous. The chapter called Our House is a good exploration into our generation's quandary about how and where to live and includes a funny escapade to the expat community in Costa Rica and her experiences at a couple of the co-housing communities. In the remaining chapters she describes her attempt to volunteer as an English tutor in Mumbai and then goes to the hills of India to pursue a spiritual quest in an ashram. At the end she analyzes how we face death in our society. LEAP will not remain on my list of favorite memoirs and if I had a rating system for my readers, this one would get 2 stars out of 5. But if you want an amusing summer read that includes her experience at a Tantric sex workshop, pick up the paperback version on my Amazon page. You can access my book store here. I am a sales affiliate for Amazon and will receive a small commission on any purchases from their site. You still get all the same free shipping deals, etc. Thanks for your support! |
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It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention. Duguet
The only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. Albert Schweitzer
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. Aesop
My e-mail box is always open if you just need to chat... |
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