Thrill ‘Em With Kindness

 

If you didn’t know there was a Random Acts of Kindness day – don’t despair. We didn’t either and we’re still holding out hope we are somewhat decent people. Founded in 1994 in the US, although it may not have expanded to Oz just yet, it does serendipitously fall on 17 February, a few short days after Palentine’s Day. We are big fans of altruism and being kind to our pals around here, so here’s a few ideas from Lauren Baxter that will hopefully have you well on your way to the Good Place.

 

Call your grandparents

Starting off nice and easy – when was the last time you called your grandparents for a good ol’ chinwag, huh? Oh stop it, the guilt is too much to bear. And when it literally costs you nothing but time, you’ve got to stop making excuses, man.Think how stoked they will be when they pick up the phone and realise it’s not a telemarketer. You might even get a cool story – apparently my grandpa was held at gunpoint by the Triad?

Volunteer at an animal shelter

We love sleep around here. It’s like being dead without the commitment. A random act of kindness went viral last year when it was discovered a man was going to his local animal shelter to take naps with the special-needs cats. Look, we’re not cat people but come on, that’s adorable. We know you’re already napping at home so you literally just need to go sleep in another location. Or you know, actually volunteer.

Donate some old tennis balls to your local dog park

Dogs are the best people. It’s true, we do not deserve them. So imagine our faces when we saw a box of tennis balls at the beach with the inscription: “In Loving Memory Of Phoebe.” It urged owners to help themselves to a tennis ball for their dog to enjoy saying, “Remember to live each moment just like your dog: with unconditional love, loyalty and happiness,” and we’re not crying, you are.

Use the Ecosia search engine

Now this is pretty cool. Ecosia is a free search engine that pledges to spend 80% of its profits planting trees. Ok nerds it may not be the “best” search engine or whatever but anything that goes out of its way to help save the environment gets the big ol’ tick of approval from us. They’ve currently planted over 48 million trees across the world and finally we have some justification for all those weird searches – no, pee is not stored in the balls.

Pay for the next person’s coffee

Let’s set the scene. You walk up to your local coffee shop all bleary-eyed and hungover and the barista informs you that your coffee has already been paid for by an anonymous stranger. Now that’s the definition of sparking joy, Kondo. We know the thought of doing some good anonymously isn’t going to get you any extra Instagram followers and we’re not saying do it every day, because, well money, but imagine how good you would feel knowing you sparked joy like that even once.

Scale a building to save a kid

We don’t do things by halves around here. Probably one of the biggest random acts of kindness stories from last year was that of Mamoudou Gassama, the French Spiderman who swung in on his web to save a kid from a building. Ok, that’s not entirely how the story goes (Ecosia it) but the dude ended up gaining French citizenship because of his good deed and now he for sure has a spot lined up in the Good Place. You know what that means – get out the lycra.

Original article: The Music February 2019 Issue