Saturday, October 30, 2010

Do Good.

My Name is Earl, was a program I loved watching. I enjoyed seeing the way a guy could reform from being bad, to being good. It was a comedy show, but there was always a lesson at the end.
Tonight I decided to turn on late night TV to relax. To my surprise, my old friend Earl was on.  The show had just started and all through it I laughed as I always did.
At the end, when it was lesson-learning time, Alyssa Milano’s character turns to Earl with a really heartfelt and serious look and says, ‘Doing good feels good’. Earl replied, ‘Yes, yes it does’. Alyssa then said, ‘and doing bad feels bad’.  Again, Earl nodded and agreed with her, confirming her recent revelation.  Alyssa’s character seemed surprised at the ease and reward of ‘doing good’.
She closed the scene by saying, ‘If doing good feels so good, why don’t more people do it?’ Earl answered, ‘I don’t know.’
That’s a very good question, why don’t people do more good if it feels good?
I don’t know why ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ are) don’t do more good, but I know why I do.
I like being nice, it makes me feel better about myself. I like holding doors, offering assistance and making someone laugh or smile.  And if someone doesn’t do it for me, I still do it for the next person.
Why not smile and express a cheerful greeting when you meet someone passing on the walk or at the store? Why not smile at someone driving by you.  I do it all the time. The worst they will do is give you a very strange look. But usually, what I witness is, they smile back! Yes, they smile back. And you know, they will probably smile at someone else after that, and maybe someone else after that! Smiling is contagious and feels good when you’re doing it.
There are many reasons to smile at someone. And one reason is clear, it’s polite. Another is maybe  not so clear;  unbeknownst to you,  that person may have private struggles that are so difficult, that your smile is the only light that shined on them that day.
Call me crazy, call me grossly hopeful, but I believe strongly that if we put good back into the world we can make a positive ripple effect and it will keep going and going and going.  Like the stadium wave. It doesn’t stop until  we stop doing it.
In my home I have many motivational quotes and notes. One is a tall poster of a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is a quote surrounding SUCCESS. It basically says that Success is: leaving the world a better place whether it be by small efforts or large, and lists some of the ways. In another room I have a black and white print of a drop of water creating a ripple effect.
Try doing a few random acts of kindness this weekend and smile at as many people you can! It’s good for your health! It’s a proven fact that smiling is better for your health-check out this list of 12 Reasons to Smile bhttp://longevity.about.com/od/lifelongbeauty/tp/smiling.htm.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."  -- Mahatma Gandhi