Write a note of gratitude to the people in your everyday life who make a difference-the mailman, a grocery clerk, or the greeter at the mall. Tell your friends about their great service so their businesses can grow. Just by paying attention to those who can so easily go unnoticed (especially if your smartphone is glued to your hand), you can enrich each other’s lives a little each day.
During difficult transitions, our natural tendency is often to resist change and grow rigid. In this state, we
seem to only be able to focus on the negatives. We think about the despair that follows the death of a loved
one, but not the wonderful moments spent together. We think of the heartbreak of a relationship ending,
but not the exhilaration and freedom of being unattached. We might even scold our loved ones, or our
friends, or coworkers for something minor when we ourselves wallow in similar negativity. But it is in
these moments that gratitude can be used to alter this way of thinking.
Finding positives and accentuating them is the easiest way to turn those proverbial frowns upside down
and gray skies back to blue. Try catching someone doing something right for a change, not something
wrong. Giving praise for a job well done will lift all parties involved.
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| https://greatergood.com/ |
There are many websites that are click-to-give. Just by clicking, you can help send food or money to countries and causes that need them. One of them is greatergood.com. It just takes a few keystrokes to make someone’s life better.
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| https://goodweave.org/ |
Finding out that handmade rugs are often made by mere children was so shocking to me- I couldn’t imagine what those youngsters have to go through every day. The organization GoodWeave (goodweave.org) was started in 1994 to stop child labor in the rug industry. To help their efforts, check for a GoodWeave label on the rugs you purchase and donate to their One in a Million campaign. GoodWeave’s work has reduced the numbers of children toiling in rug factories, and with your help, they can help end child labor in the world today.
If you are like me, you can end up with so many old keys you end up looking like a janitor! Find out how you can unlock some goodness ay keysforkindness.com. Donate your old keys to help fight Multiple Sclerosis.
Volunteer to help build a house through Habitat for Humanity (habitat.org), a nonprofit organization that builds and repairs houses so that families have a safe and affordable plave to live.
Having plants around is great for where you live and where you work. Not only are they lovely to look at, they improve the air you breathe! The following air-purifying plants look great, produce oxygen, and can even absorb contaminants like formaldehyde and benzene (commonly off- gassed from furniture and mattresses). The best part? Nary an electrical cord, nor a battery in sight. Ahhhh.
*Spider plant
*Peace lily
*Snake plant
*Elephant ear
*Weeping fig
*Rubber plant
*Bamboo palm
“Contagious Optimist” Colleen Georges taught me this: It’s easy to judge others for their actions
and take for granted those we love or meet in chance encounters. We sometimes get so caught
up in our busy-ness that we forget others are busy too, they have rough days just like us, and
they benefit from our kindness just as we do theirs. Go out of your way to smile at strangers,
say good morning, say thank you, give a compliment, and listen attentively to someone who
needs your ear. Do it because you can, because it feels great, because it makes someone else
feel good. Don’t worry about a subsequent thank you; let a thank you be a beautiful perk,
rather than an expectation.
Author Art Plotnik helped revive this word in his book Better Than Great: A Plenitudinous
Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives. Simply put, “ripsniptious” (rip-snip-shuss) can
be used to express something or someone that is wonderful and highly spirited. Today, you will
be ripsniptious and notice all of the other ripsniptious things around you. Let this be your word of
the day and let it embody you-and introduce others to ripsniptious of the word ripsniptious! It’s
fun to say, isn’t it? It’s even better to be it. It is also a wonderful compliment and I think you are
pretty darn ripsniptious for reading this book!
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| https://feedprojects.com/ |
My favorite kinds of gifts are the ones that keep on giving. The FEED Project has many cool
options that are made in America and crafted with love and pride. A beautifully carved cutting
board for your best friend’s birthday from FeedProjects.com will not only impress them but help
feed the hungry. I love their FEED bags, which are a handy way to ditch the plastic and the
paper, too.
Counselors can contribute enormously to our troops when they return from their service term. I
honestly think my ex-Marine dad had PTSD. Post-traumatic stress was not even acknowledged
until long after the Vietnam War, and only through the hard work of many activists. Therapists
and mental health professionals can really help our military veterans by volunteering their own
services through the organization Give an Hour (giveanhour.org) and this is extremely helpful to
families of vets. Listening can change lives for the better in a big way.
Put down your smartphone and make eye contact, person to person. Nowadays, I consider that
a major act of kindness and courtesy, as well.
Have you heard of “food desserts”? I certainly never did until reading last year in The New York Times about entire swaths of urban areas with nothing but corner stores filled with processed, packaged foods and no produce whatsoever. I started paying attention and it is true. There is something you can do about it. By making a donation to WholesomeWave.org, they will provide fresh fruits and veggies to those underserved communities. How great is that? Actually, it is even better,as Wholesome Wave obtains their organic produce from small and mid-sized farmers.
Make a list of small things you can do around your house and place of work to conserve energy
and water, stop waste, and increase the recycling. Then start doing them!
Make your Christmas presents this year. It’s more personal and you will save money. From a tin of homemade fudge to a colorful knitted scarf, your family and friends are sure to appreciate your hard work and thoughtfulness. You can also think bigger! Knit, sew, and quilt your way to a better world with the organizations below:
*The Mother Bear Project gives hand-knit and crocheted bears to children affected by HIV/AIDS in emerging nations so they know that they are loved. (motherbearproject.org)
*Socks For Soldiers knits socks for those on active duty serving in the Middle East (socksforsoldiersinc.com)
*Stitching Up the World knits, crochets, and sews items to donate to chemotherapy patients, Special Olympic athletes, and others in New Hampshire. (candiawomansgroup.org/stitching/index.html)
*Threads of Love provides clothing, blankets, and other handmade articles for premature and sick infants. Threads of Love has chapters in the United States, Canada and London, England. (threadsoflove.org)
*Tiny Stitches is based in Gwinnett County, Georgia and provides basic layettes to disadvantaged newborns in north Georgia. They also provide burial ensembles to families who lose an infant. (tinystitches.org)
When tragedies happen, it is often hard to know what to do. Here is a shining example of a positive reaction. When police refused to call an ambulance soon enough to save the fatally wounded Oscar Grant in 2009, Sharena Thomas and Lesley Phillips decided that too many people lacked knowledge of even the most basic emergency first aid techniques. Together, these Occupy activists founded the People’s Community Medics, and since 2012 they have been providing free first aid training and first aid materials to Bay Area residents.
Their website, peoplescommunitymedics.org, explains, “This project is an act of self determination. We resist the state’s disregard for our well being and are creating an alternate reality. We hope that one day every child will be taught basic first aid in school.”
Committed to teaching their community how to treat medical emergencies in the absence of an ambulance, Thomas and Phillips call their project “a people centered alternative” to institutional support that often is unreliable in its response to low-income communities and communities of color.
Volunteer was never a word in her vocabulary. Not that Lee Grant didn’t know what it meant, but it wasn’t something she would ever think about doing. Feeling unloved as a child left her self-centred, angry, and needy. As far as Lee was concerned, the world owed her. But it was hard to get to know the world, as small as hers was. Sheltered and sequestered in a small coastal community in rural New England, she knew little about the daily lives of regular people with regular families, but enough to know that hers wasn’t like theirs. “Bad things happened in my house,” she said, “and I never understood why, because I was afraid to ask.”
Throughout her teen and young adult years, Lee used drugs and alcohol to transport herself, begging attention from anyone and everyone. Chemicals seemed to work in the short haul, but eventually they led to more destructive behaviors: setting fires, shoplifting, drunk driving, punching through plate glass windows. Cutting helped drain her pent up self-loathing and relieved her. Sutures and butterfly bandages briefly put her back together, but after so many years and so many scars, self-mutilation wasn’t working. After three weeks in an institution for attempted suicide, she was ready to try something differnt.
One day, out of the blue, Lee was invited into a knit shop filled with happy, loving people and found a passion and joy she never knew before. “I made things with my hands and felt good about myself. I entered an afghan in the county fair and won a blue ribbon. I joined AA and stopped drinking. I found a community of creative people who accepted me and my knitting and that, along with sober living, brought the attention I craved. But still...something was missing,”she said. She noticed she felt best when she shared her knowledge of knitting and making other people happy brought a new kind of satisfaction.
On a whim, Lee volunteered to teach knitting classes to kids for the local Santa Rosa chapter of Catholic Charities (CatholicCharities.org). She wanted to find out if knitting would make a difference to them like it did for her. She wanted to give them something they could turn to when life got too scary, or complicated, or boring...something they could turn to for comfort or fun. She gave them sticks and string and direction. She gave them an opportunity to feel accomplished and proud. She gave them a piece of herself and found out what she’d been missing.
Lee began to care about other people. “I taught families at a homeless shelter to knit. I taught a group of foster teens. I crocheted for battered women and premature babies. I knitted warm hats for cold-headed cancer patients I would never get to know.
“All of this giving changes me. I feel good inside. No longer hollow and self-centered, I feel something akin to love. For others. For myself. For who I am. For what I do.” Lee is not just any knitter; she is tremendously gifted and tremendously generous. She is the author of several books, including Love in Every Stitch, and is a sought-after pattern designer. Go to her Facebook page, “Knitting and Healing With Lee Grant,” or you can find her at a shelter with a lot of bright, beautiful skeins of yarn and a bunch of happy kids, doing what she does best.
I asked Lee to sum up how it was that she came to “be a good in the world.”
“I blame it on volunteering,” she said.
Donate “once in a lifetime” clothing such as old bridesmaid dresses or even your wedding dresses. Many people cannot afford formalwear for special events and if we are done wearing them, why keep them? Keep your own memories alive through pictures, and pass the dress or suit along to make someone feel happy and special for their big moment.
Author and all-around-good-person Lara Starr offered this tip: “I’m a huge fan of Image for Success and the work they do in San Rafael, California. Image for Success provides men and women who are transitioning to work with two-week professional and casual wardrobes so they can embark on their new lives feeling like a million bucks! Clothes and how we present ourselves can have a huge impact on our self esteem. Giving these folks the time, attention, and resources to look and feel their best means the world. And the thrift shop Image for Success runs is one of my favorite places to shop. The staff and volunteers always make shopping fun! Their tidy shop with well-chosen, quality items is a great place to score designer finds on the cheap!” Visit the website at imageforsuccess.org.
I learned from my globetrotting friend Santosh that one of the nicest things a traveler can do is to learn how to say the basics in the language of the locals. He stressed that saying “thank you” is the most important phrase of all. His guide to global gratitude is below:
Arabic: Shukran
Czech: Dekuji
Danish: Tak
Dutch: Dank u
Estonian:Tanan teid
Filipino: Salamat
Finnish: Kiitos
French: Merci
German: Danke
Hungarian: Koszonom
Indonesian: Terima kasih
Irish: Go raibh maith agat
Italian: Grazie
Japanese: Arigato
Latvian: Paldies
Norwegian: Takk
Polish: Dziekuje
Portuguese: Obrigado
Romanian: Multumesc
Spanish: Gracias
Swahili: Asante
Swedish: Tack
Vietnamese: Cam o’n ban
Welsh: Diolch yn fawr
Much of the time, kindness is good common sense. Just think about what people really need. In low-income families with no other options, an infant can spend the entire wearing the same diaper. Due to a lack of funds, some parents cannot afford to change their baby’s diaper more than once a day, and most laundromats do not allow cloth diapers to be washed in their machines. Help out a family in need to cover the basics by donating diapers through the Diaper Bank Network at diaperbanknetwork.org.
