Tuesday’s Top Ten (Divided by Two): Acts of Kindness

I’m already tired of Live and Let Die. No, not the song. Well, maybe the song, too. Anyway…

I know I run hot and cold. I know sometimes people want to avoid me. There’s bitchy resting face, and then there’s Hurricane Edie about to Kill Someone face. I can’t really change that, but I can do nice things for people to make up for it.

I like to grab coffee or lunch with my friends, but I need to do more than that. (For one, they’re already my friends. It’s not like I’m going to impress them with my sparkling personality.) I’m going to pay it forward this week and see how it goes. Since there are only five days left in the week, I’m going for five acts of kindness. (That’s ten divided by two, for you math geniuses.)

5. Share a funny video to make someone smile. I know this one will make my coworkers grin.

4. Donate a book. I stopped reading The Art of Tidying Up at the chapter about books, mostly because I couldn’t part with them. I need to rethink that. I could stand to part with a few. Or fifty. Or hundreds. I could probably hit near the thousand mark. But then what would I do with these cool bookshelves Lemur built?

3. Call a Grandparent. If they’re your grandparent, then you are very lucky. I don’t have that luxury, so I instead want to volunteer at the nursing home. This one might take longer than a week, but it’s definitely on my bucket list. I wasn’t joking about building a retirement home with lottery money–if I’m ever rich, that’s one of my goals. While it’s true that our elders are set in their ways, and sometimes that can be a detriment, they also have much to teach us about life.

2. Write a letter to someone who made a difference in your life. I need to do this. I made a friend on the bus, an older girl who helped me through my gender identity issues in elementary and then helped me through my horrible break-up with the abusive ex in college. She made me understand that women can be just as powerful as men, and that men who fear powerful women are cowards who don’t deserve us. Thanks, K.

1. Adopt a soldier. I don’t know why more people don’t do this. I’m probably the worst person in the world to do this. What soldier wants to hear from liberal ol’ me? That’s my relationship with my republican former-army-staff-sergeant brother talking. I’m going to register and see what happens.

 I’m not a nice enough person to come up with these ideas on my own. Find these and more at The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation’s page.