Stories of Kindness from Around the World

This week I decided to up the smile-card notch a bit.  I usually affix a $1 dollar bill to a smile card prior to tagging the recipient, but this week, I felt moved to increase the monetary value and see if that increased the value of good feelings that arose within me when I give!

On my way home from work, I cruised up the onramp to 880 South and looked for the homeless man who stands alongside the cars right before the traffic signal.  There he was.  I rolled down my window, connected with the eyes of this middle-aged latino man, and handed him a $5 dollar bill. 

Then, in the middle of the week during lunchtime, as I was leaving Le Boulangerie Cafe in downtown San Jose, I headed back to my car to go back to the office.  However, when I saw anti-war sentiments smacked onto a neighbhoring car in the form of two bumper stickers, I felt compelled to express my resonance with this driver's thoughts through a tag.  Making sure the coast was clear and the driver was nowhere in sight, I took out a smile card from my wallet, wrapped a $5 dollar bill around it, and carefully tucked the wrapped card behind the windshield wipers on the dashboard of the car. Luckily the wind wasn't blowing that day :). 

To conclude my $5 dollar experiment this week, I went to my usual spot at the "It's A Grind" cafe this evening.  After purchasing my moroccan mint tea, I asked the cashier if I could give her something.  Surprisingly, the smile card transaction flowed so naturally.  I simply explained that I was giving her something called a "smile card "(after which she automatically started smiling :), along with $5 dollars, which I wanted her to pass along to the next customer.  She safely secured the "tag" beneath her register before I left, seeming to have so seamlessly kept the concept of kindness spreading.

I realized that it was not  so much the increase in monetary value this week that brought me more happiness.  Rather, it was the belief that I personally felt I had more capacity to give, that deepened my experience this week and expanded those positive feelings inside!