Attracting Abundance

The Law

Two Doors to Success

Happiness - XV

Kindness

The first behavioral change which I recommend is inculcating a habit of doing kind acts. Those acts of kindness where there is some personal cost involved have greater impact on positivity. Say you are driving to your home after work. You notice that an old person is begging for alms by the roadside shivering in the cold. There could be various scales of your response to such an event. You could drive by ignoring the individual or you could drop a few coins into his begging bowl or you could give him some snacks that you always carry in your car and a bottle of water or you could take off your jacket and wrap it around his shoulders, give him food and water and some money, or you could do all that and determine to find shelter for the man in an old age home all costs paid. the action that you will take depends on your level of empathizing with the individual. The duration and intensity of positivity that your action will generate inside you is proportional to what it costs you - not necessarily in terms of money. It could be in terms of your effort, it could be in terms of inconvenience caused to you, it could be in terms of re-prioritizing your day etc.

Those acts of kindness which help in making an individual self-sufficient are perhaps the best. Such acts take time and a tremendous amount of personal commitment from both parties. And when the trees bear fruit, the taste is heavenly. The process is highly envigorating and is a continuous source of positivity.

The extent of your involvement, in terms of cost or effort you put in to make a difference to the life of the individual, is the driver. The acts could be simple and one-time for each beneficiary or drawn over a long time and repetitive in nature for the beneficiary. The choice is yours. I only insist that you act.To illustrate my point I am attaching two short videos that I came across in youtube. The videos explain what I am trying to say. 

I have my own way of putting in my acts of helping out people. Whenever I am travelling, I keep my eyes open and my mind focused on the surrounding, looking out for situations where I can make a difference. The act could be as simple as opening the door for an aged or disabled person, or helping someone find an address though I do no not know the address. I have found that dedicating a particular day of the week for concentrated actions on kindness is of greater help. It does not mean that you ignore being kind on the other days. It means that on one particular day in a week, you deliberately look for opportunities executing kind acts whereas on other days you could do it whenever an opportunity pops up before you. The acts of kindness are genuine only when there is no expectation of a return payback or there is no advertisement. 

You may have some friends who will discourage you from making such efforts with a very cynical way of thinking that such individual acts of small kindness do not make any difference to the society and the world at large. When such a view is taken, the larger picture is missed. The larger picture is that you do not do it for making a difference to the world but for making a difference to your world - you. And you do make a huge difference .

Practised over a period of time, the act of helping people becomes a habit. You start doing it without conscious effort. You set up a positivity loop inside you which fuels your well being and happiness and feeds on your happiness and well being for increased poistivity. This phenomenon is termed as mutual causation or reciprocal causation - each becomes of the cause of the other.

There have been people in my life who have very lovingly tried to pay me back for some act of goodness that I may have done for them. I have experienced these payback responses a long time after I had done my bit because these people took time to reach a stage where they could pay back and more. In most of the cases my memory had faded and I could not recollect what I had done. I have one clear thinking process which I apply to cases where a payback comes up. I ask such people to pay forward. I ask them to promise to help someone they come across in need of help and I make it clear that when they do that their obligation to me, if any, is wiped clean. This way I multiply the force of kindness and increase not only my positivity but those of others too. Paying forward is a win-win for every one. It creates a ripple effect which can touch people far and wide.

Donations to charity are a very popular and convenient way of showing kindness. This is a necessary mode of showing kindness in situations which require massive interventions covering a large number of recipients and, therefore a large number of donors. The acts of kindness ,where personal involvement is substantial, score way above the donation driven charity in terms of generating positivity. Personally I don't experience the influence of donations on my positivity level - the strings of my heart do not vibrate as they do when I am personally involved. 

Namaste

Prabir