A Single Act

I have been thinking about this topic for the past week and it just so happened that some really sweet people have been my Angels for the past week.  They have been leaving charming and very thoughtful notes, and gifts at my door every night.  Every delivery has been signed  "Your Angels"!  I don't believe it is coincidence that as I have been writing this, that someone has been performing kind acts for me, it truly is inspiring! A special thank you to my anonymous Angel's for putting a ray of sunshine in my days last week!

 Why is it that whenever we perform acts of kindness we feel warmth surge through us and it makes us happy?  According to randomactsofkindness.org Kindness can increase the love hormone, oxytocin, it increases energy, happiness, lifespan, pleasure, and serotonin.  Kindness can decrease pain, stress, anxiety, depression, and blood pressure.  Kindness is like a muscle and as we exercise it we develop more compassion for others and a desire to help.

If you are on the receiving end of a kind act, you might feel your burden get lighter.  You might feel the warm, happy glow passed on to you through a kind act, motivating you to do something for someone else.  I love hearing stories of kind acts!  I love being on both ends of kind acts.  My mom was in a fast food drive thru once when the person in front of her paid for her order, so she did the same, passed it on.  At the window they informed her that this trend had been going on for awhile.  Isn't that cool?!  I love that!  Kindness never goes out of style and I think we all appreciate some kindness once in a while.

Sometimes I wish I could be a professional gift giver.  I wish I had an endless supply of money that I could use to buy birthday presents, Christmas presents, or any kind of presents for people!  I love giving gifts, especially Birthday gifts.  One of my favorite things to do is think of ways to personalize it, you know, really think about what they would like or enjoy for a gift.  If that could ever be a real job, I'm there!

Kind acts can be small or large, they can change someone's day or someone's life!  One kind act may or may not change the world, but it could change someone's world!  As you read this think of kind acts that have changed your day or your world.

One kind act changed my world.  I wanted to play the flute, I was now 11 years old getting ready to go into the 6th grade.  With my previous short lived career at the piano, you can imagine that my parents did not want to invest in a possible short lived career as a floutist!  Why would I want to play another instrument when the piano was such a struggle?  I loved music, I knew I wanted to sing or play music!  I blame my parents, it all started with them, really!  One year for Christmas they did not know what to get me, so they got me a professional karaoke machine.  They must have heard me singing to myself.......ALL THE TIME!  I was probably 5 or 6 years old, yep that's when my singing career took off, haha!

Back to the act of kindness.  The answer to all of my begging and pleading was a big NO!  I had a Sunday school teacher, she was young and newly married, and she played the flute, or she did.  I did not know that at the time, but she found out somehow that I wanted to play.  Maybe she heard me talk about it at church, I'm not sure.  I remember one day she just showed up at my house with her old flute and gave it to me.  She told me she wanted me to have it.  She never expected me to even return it to her.  There it was, the answer to my prayer, you bet I'd been praying!  She made it possible for me to learn music beyond the abandoned attempt at the piano.
 

I started to play the flute in 6th grade band!  The band teacher was great!  At first I was a little nervous that I would have to "fake it to make it" for a while, kind of like with the piano.  I was worried I would not learn how to read the music, but I did.  I continued with the flute through high school and was able to take private lessons from a college student for a time.  This lead me to pick up the bass clarinet in high school as the symphonic band desperately needed two students to switch instruments.  The high school provided the instruments, so that made it easy.  The real reason I switched was a boy!  My first love, he was a good friend and he was the first volunteer to switch instruments and so I followed!  I really loved playing the bass clarinet and it got me into the symphonic band a year earlier which meant more traveling and competitions, so it was fun!


I played in all of the bands at my high school including directing my high school pep band my senior year.  I played the piccolo in the marching band.  I was a member of all of the choirs in high school except for the all girls show choir.  I loved band and choir.  In college I went on to be part of the LDS Institute of religion choirs, including HOPE, their show choir.  I had the opportunity to be a member of Michael McLean's Forgotten Carols choir for the St. George, Utah shows.  I did that for three years.  Being a member of HOPE brought opportunities to tour Utah and surrounding states sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I think most importantly for me, music was an outlet, a way to help me deal with emotions.  In college I would often go the Institute of Religion building and hideaway in a room and just play the piano, sometimes for hours.  It was a good way to release tension in my life and it helped me get through some really tough times.  It was a way for me to quickly invite the spirit into my present and every time I did I knew Heavenly Father recognized me and knew me, it brought great peace and comfort to me.

All of this because of one person's thoughtfulness, one person who decided to be kind and charitable to me.  If not, then what?  Just speculation, we never really know what would have, or could have been.  Maybe I would not have had the opportunity at that particular time to cultivate my talents, but I know that it was by divine intervention that I did have the opportunity.  It was perhaps a small thing for her, my Sunday school teacher, but it changed my life, it changed me!   

Our Father in Heaven uses us to answer others' prayers, if we are willing to be His hands here on the earth.  Kindness has a ripple effect and when we do something kind it inspires in someone else the desire to do something kind.  So, that is how we change the world!  Our kind acts are just some among so many that are catalysts in this ripple effect. If we have the power to make someone happy, we  should!

"Kindness is the highest form of intelligence"-Wayne Teasdale

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion."-Dalai Lama

"We rise by lifting others."-Robert Ingersoll

"Whenever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness."-Lucias Annaeus Seneca

Empower yourself, do something kind for someone!  How will you change the world, or someone's world!?!