Random Acts of Kindness

The major philosophy by which I live my life is compassion for all living things. It is intensely personal, but something I try to embody through both my actions and my words. I am not perfect at it. There are times when I am frustrated, judgmental, jealous, or bitter. Sometimes it is almost impossible to separate myself from these emotions and attitudes. I am not a good person.

I hope, over time that I will get better at practicing compassion. I have a good roll model for it: my husband, who is the kindest person I know and who teaches me through his example, how to be truly selfless. He does not seek gratitude or recompense for his actions, even when they inconvenience him. He does it because it is right. As we now have little eyes and ears appraising our every action, it seems more important to model compassion and kindness as an end to itself, rather than a means to further oneself.

Why does this come up? Recently, without getting into too many details, there has been a movement in some of my circles to promote our "random acts of kindness." Not only are we being encouraged to be more kind and compassionate to those around us (which in itself is not a bad thing), we are urged to tell others within the group about those acts and even take pictures of them. I find this extremely distasteful. I really had to parse out my feelings. Do I feel this way because I am angrily having a temper tantrum and stomping my foot? Or do I feel this way for another reason?

I feel that a random act of kindness loses its spirit of generosity and compassion when it is shared in this manner. It seems more like an action for ego stroking than for goodness in itself. Not only that, it cheapens the act of service. If I offer to do something for a friend they assume I'm doing it for the sake of this challenge, not because I genuinely want to help.

In today's culture, that is increadibly focused on instant gratification and self promotion, I feel it is so important to take a step back and do things without an audience. I mean, I get it, I post things that I am excited about, and get more excited when people "like" it. But do I really need to share the fact that I let someone in while driving? Or that I donated some goods to charity? Or that I save my empties to give to kids who come to the door fundraising for their sports/schools/etc? I don't have a lot of extra money or time, and I give where I can. Isn't that enough without promoting it?