Passing on kindness

I once attended an orientation meeting for parents in my daughter’s school. While waiting for the meeting to start, a quotation posted at the back of a classroom caught my interest: “Real generosity is doing something nice . . . for someone who will never find out.” It echoed a similar passage in a book I read before that says, “True kindness is doing something for someone who is not in a position to repay you.”

These days what seem to hug the news more are kidnappings, corruption, thievery and other sordid displays of human malice. Isn’t it about time each of us does something to let goodness take its rightful prominence in our country, starting in our community? Opportunities abound to spread goodness, if one just dares to be more caring. One very simple way is to express kindness to another. No heroic stuff, but simple words or acts that mean we love our neighbor in a real, concrete sense. They could be little acts for someone who can’t return your favor, like giving a hitch to a pregnant woman, or treating some streetchildren to free burger and fries, and so many other examples. Or, you can be more adventurous, say, by paying the ticket of the car following you at the expressway tollgate. Such acts of kindness won’t cost much really, yet they’d surely make a big impact in your giver’s heart first of all. One finds true happiness in the very act of genuine giving.

And what should you do if you have been touched by a stranger’s act of kindness? If you can’t pay it back, pay it forward then, to borrow the title of a movie. Show your “utang na loob” (gratefulness) by doing an act of kindness to somebody else.

To be kind and to do kindness to one another are what we are on earth for. We lose nothing by sharing, for life’s miracle is the more we give the more we have. Let’s not then delay doing an act of kindness to someone. Pass it on forward, please.