Practice Random Acts Of Kindness

Tomorrow is National Random Acts Of Kindness Day so I'm giving you some ideas of things to do to celebrate! Of course, we can do random acts of kindness anytime, so I'll also be giving you ideas that you can do throughout the year.

In the Northern climates, snow accompanies winter. If you're scraping off your car and you have time, scrape the cars on either side of you too! It's a really practical and simple way to show kindness. Along the same lines, you can shovel a neighbor's driveway and/or sidewalk while you're out shoveling yours. 

The age-old "pay it forward" is always an option. (Though why is it called pay it "forward" when you are paying for the person behind you???). Buy the coffee or meal of the person in line behind you.

If you know of someone who is going through a rough time, you can mail them a gift card a a nice note (anonymously, of course). It doesn't have to be much but it will make their day.

During the warmer months, if you live somewhere with sidewalks, you can go around and leave nice messages with chalk around the neighborhood. Drawing smiley faces is also good. Anything to put a smile on the face of people walking by.

I know the goal of RAoK is to be anonymous, but you can hold doors for people (we should always be doing that though!) and offer to help people with their groceries at the store.

Other ideas:

• Buy flowers or a small gift for your neighbors and leave them on their porch.
  
• If your neighbor has pets, get them something for their pet.
  
• Make some food for a neighbor.
  
• Take coffee to a friend or bring it in to work for a coworker.
  

You might notice that a lot of these ideas focus on the people in your life - friends, neighbors, coworkers. I believe that we should first and foremost be pouring into and building up the people that are directly in our lives. Yes, it is great to pay for the person behind us, but all the other ideas help form or strengthen relationships. We were put in their lives for a reason.

What ideas do you have for National Random Acts Of Kindness Day? Please share them with us so we can have more ways to bless others!