Today is National Good Samaritan Day – it’s rather self-explanatory – it is the idea of carrying out selfless acts in celebration of kindness. Kindness should always be celebrated! However, I adore the idea of actively seeking out ways to spread joy. I have this belief that we all carry around empty buckets of love, and in order to fill our own, we must fill others. It’s a win-win; we feel good, they feel good – and around we go.
Here’s a list of 20 uncomplicated deeds sure to jump-start your Love Bucket.
- Pick up the tab for a stranger; offer to pay for the person behind you in the Starbucks drive through or ask your server if you could pay for the little lady sitting alone.
- Write encouraging and hopeful quotes on painted rocks, take a walk and hid them around your neighborhood, on lawns, in parks, at bus stops.
- Compliment your cashier.
- Let someone go ahead of you in the checkout line.
- Donate blood; maybe not painless, but definitely helpful.
- Bake cookies and deliver them to your neighbors.
- Pick up trash, rather than step over it.
- Leave little affirmations in random books at the local bookstore, you never know when someone needs to hear, “You matter”.
- On your social media platform, share about a cause you believe in.
- Get a jump start on spring cleaning! Clean out your closet and donate to a local charity or half-way house.
- Call your mom!
- Bring a sandwich and water bottle to a sign holder on the road.
- Leave a cookie and a thank you note in your mailbox for your mailman.
- Return your shopping cart!!
- Leave an anonymous kind note in a gym locker, library book, bathroom stall, etc.
- Mail a card to your Bestie, “Just a note to say hello!”
- Tape $2 to a vending machine.
- Give a meal for a person who needs one.
- Donate dog/cat food to your local animal shelter.
- Contact your local women’s shelter and ask what is needed – kids often live there too, you can help change lives.
The world can seem daunting; full of darkness with hateful stories and distant strangers. Why not spend the day recognizing and cultivating kindness? It could be exactly what we all need.
Today, let’s commit to being neighborly; let’s hold doors open, smile in traffic and tip our baristas. One selfless act can unknowingly change lives, or at least set in motion a pattern of paying it forward.
Happy Good Samaritan Day!
Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash
