Pay it Forward Movement
The Holiday Season has arrived. It is a time that we see more instances of people showing kindness to others. Random Acts of Kindness and Pay it Forward are two movements sharing popularity. There are many sites across the internet dedicated to this modern movement. There are even advent calendars like the one below that can be downloaded with lots of new and fun suggestions.
http://www.coffeecupsandcrayons.com/random-acts-of-christmas-kindness-advent-calendar/.
The idea about paying it forward was made popular in 1951 in a book called Between Planets by Robert Heinlein. Heinlein wrote “We cannot adequately pay back the dead heroes and philosophers and frontiersmen, even our immediate ancestors; but we can pay forward to those in need of a banknote, a confirmation, a true idea to steady their judgment, sustain a free society in which to flourish.”
Later, Hyde’s book, Paying It Forward, was published in 1999. The next year, Warner Bros. produced a film based on the book which ignited a new fire for kindness. This movement along with the RACK movement have become more and more popular with the help of the different websites.
https://youtu.be/GJeWFoKZ63U
The Random Acts of Kindness Movement
The “Rack” movement has a rich history dating back to Benjamin Franklin. He first penned the idea in 1784 in a letter to a friend that owed him money. Franklin asked this friend to lend the same amount to “another honest man in similar distress.”
“This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money,” he wrote “I am not rich enough to afford much in good works, and so am obliged to be cunning and make the most of little.”
The movement received momentum after Anne Herbert’s book Random Acts of Kindness was published in February 1993 speaking about true stories of acts of kindness. A random act of kindness is defined as a non premeditated, inconsistent action designed to offer kindness towards the outside world. The video below is just one of many that can be found on the website https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-videos/.
These two movements serve as reminders to show kindness and compassion to our fellow man.