Quirky Books: Random Acts of Kindness forward by Daphne Kingma

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Random Acts of Kindness forward by Daphne Kingma

A collection of stories from Reader's Digest, "Random Acts of Kindness" is a coffee table book. Nicely bound, it has and appropriate cover. A person could read it in a day and forget every story. Since it is random groups of stories, the only memorable structure is grouping the stories by theme.

Sometimes the person feels good about giving a random act of kindness. Sometimes they receive a random act of kindness. Functionally, it offers ideas to expand a social circle or feeling less lonely.

There are ideas for practicing random acts of kindness. Some ideas are peculiar. I do not want people to leave music on my answering machine. I imagine the person who is happy, not afraid, is a Music Teacher or works with a large number of people. Anonymous phone calls are not a threatening activity.

That is something to think about when reading the book. New experiences are rewarding activities. Even if not going as planned, it is fun to reflect on what happened. I do not suggest doing everything the book suggests. Some ideas sound fun.

It could be a fun party or team-building activity to share stories about when someone did something you appreciate.

I have a personal story about a recent random act of kindness:

I was driving on the freeway and saw a car stranded on the side-of-the-road so I called the Police and reported it. I did not want to stop. I am a woman driving alone and they might be crazy. The Police will be there to offer assistance.

Only a couple days ago, I went to the convenience store and bought a couple cartons of cigarettes. The Cashier took a moment to find promotional cartons so I would save fifty cents on each pack. It was a savings of ten dollars. I appreciate the extra time they took to give me a better deal.

My overall impression is it is good for feeling good. This applies to anyone in any career, yet feels a desire to strengthen bonds with friends or find a nonthreatening method to make friends. Another use for the book is to select a page at random and read the story. It might apply to what is going on in life. Every story contains an optimistic thought about life.

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