|
Today's
Meditation:
I've
grown up believing that if someone shows me kindness, my
highest duty was to pay back that kindness to the same
person. It wasn't until I was done a great kindness
by a great friend, who insisted that I never pay her back
but pass on the kindness to someone else, that I learned
about the incredible value of passing on something so nice
and important as a kindness.
I
know that when I perform a kind act, I don't do so with
the intention of having it paid back, so it's funny that I
assume that when someone else is kind to me, I should pay
it back to them. In a way, my perspective even
cheapens their kindness by assigning a self-serving motive
to it, and that doesn't really seem fair.
It
would be a beautiful feeling to think that a kind act that
I did for one person was passed on to someone else, and
then passed on from there to even another person. If
my simple act can motivate another person to add to the
kindness and caring of the world, then my simple act
becomes much more than a simple act-- it becomes a spark
that can start a flame, and it's a wonderful thing to
think of that flame spreading and affecting many more
people in positive ways.
Performing
a kind act is adding positive energy to the world.
It's making a contribution to the positive side of life,
the side that allows us to love and to dream and to feel
good about ourselves and others. A kind act is
especially effective when it's given with no expectation
of return, and we can reward the doer of that act more by
passing on their kindness than by trying to return it.
|
