Have you noticed how rushed people are today?  No matter where I go it seems people are always running from one task to another, often late and often on their cell phones.  I have nothing against cell phones.  I have a Blue Tooth that is attached to my ear every time I go out.  However, I try to make a point of putting my Blue Tooth away and turning off my cell phone whenever I am in a face-to-face conversation.  It’s the only polite thing to do.

So, in a world that is as busy as ours and stresses, at least in American culture, looking out for “number one”, it’s not often that people take time out of their busy lives to think about someone else.  That’s why I’m so impressed and thankful when someone does something for me that brightens my day.

Today is one of those days.  One of the ladies in my husband’s office thought of me and my youngest daughter.  She has planned to bake some gluten-free cookies for her boyfriend (he has Celiac disease) this weekend.  Knowing that my daughter and I are allergic to gluten also, she offered to bring some of her homemade cookies to us on Monday.  Wow, how wonderful to be thought of!

Granted, she would not be going out of her way to bring us some of the cookies, but her forethought was nonetheless appreciated.  How many times have you done something and afterwards thought, “I wish I had told [whomever] about this.  She would have loved this too.”  If you’re like me, it’s all too often that you have similar thoughts.

That’s why my husband and I are trying to retrain ourselves and our family. In fact, one of our family’s traditions is to share, over dinner, how we helped someone else during the day.  That help may be small – our daughter may lend a pencil to another student who doesn’t have one, or a little bigger – I may take a friend’s relative to the airport when my friend has to work, or even bigger – my husband may leave an envelope with money on a financially struggling co-worker’s desk. Regardless of what the act of kindness is, we always try to do something for someone else each and every day.

And what great blessings we receive knowing that we’ve brought a smile to someone else’s face and lightened their burden even for a moment.

Choose a Better Life by appreciating the things people do for you and by finding ways to give the gift of kindness, no matter how simple, to others.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 6:44 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.