Good Friday and the Karma Army

Back in 2002 humourist Danny Wallace placed an ad in the London magazine Loot.  The ad said, quite simply, 'JOIN ME'.  To his amazement, hundreds of people responded, even though the ad gave no details at all about what they would be joining, or why. This, in itself says shed-loads about our need for community and our need to belong to something... but I digress.

Having got such a great response, Wallace then needed to decide what exactly his respondents were joining. His solution was to encourage all his Joinees to undertake Random Acts of Kindness at least once a week. He encouraged everyone to do nice stuff on Fridays (hence Good Fridays) and as today is, indeed, Good Friday this seems like a particularly appropriate day to be writing this piece. The only instructions were that everybody had to be nice to someone else for absolutely no personal gain whatsoever. 

Doing nice things for other people has so much more impact when it's completely unexpected. Wallace gives some nice examples of paying for the cup of tea that the person in the queue in front of you has just ordered ... offering to carry someone's shopping for them ... or even simply holding a door open for someone. 

Since then many thousands of people from all over the world have joined the cause. Wallace's Joinees are called The Karma Army and he says 'if what goes around really does come around, we all stand to benefit from these Random Acts of Kindness.' 

It's true about what goes around comes around. I've noticed that if I take the trouble to let a car in in front of me, invariably that driver will do the same thing for someone else further on up the road.

Random acts of kindness - who knows where they could take us...

Do you have an experience to share of being either the giver or recipient of a random act of kindness?  If so, please do leave a comment - I'd love to hear your story.

Comments

[Fran]

Hi Annabel,

What a lovely posting! It made me think of adding the concept of 'paying it forward' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward). If you've not yet seen the film of the same name, it's really inspiring.

Happy Easter to you and all your readers x

[Jane Howitt]

I screeched into the car park near the dentist's, late again and only a £5 note and 35p change. The machine wouldn't take notes!

What to do?

There was only one other person in the car park, and she didn't have £5's worth of change -- so she gave me two £1 coins for my ticket!

That's right: she GAVE me the money! Never met her before. Didn't know her from Adam. What a darling! x

[Annabel Sutton]

Great story, Jane, and a perfect living-and-breathing example of a Random Act of Kindness. Now the question is ... did you find yourself doing something similar for someone else after this experience???

[Sofia]

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[Coach outlet]

Thank you very much for your very thoughtful and considered comment. I approach the journey in very much the same way as you've described yours.