Who says 'pay it forward' is dead? Nobody I know. And it certainly hasn't been my experience. It is most certainly ALIVE!! (cue Frankenstein music).
There are the random acts of kindness, the 'blind' pay it forwards if you will. It just happened for me again. On my way to a job interview in downtown Chicago, I ask a man who's walking toward his parking space whether he's leaving and he nods, yes. Then instead of pulling out of the space, he walks toward me as I sit in my car, hands me his paid ticket stub and says, "Would you like this, it's paid up till midnight?" I thank him profusely. He has no idea that the sixteen bucks he's just saved me will really, really help. He didn't have to do that. Which is exactly the point. He didn't have to do that. But he did.
Today, out of the blue, I got three, count 'em, 3 (!) bottles of the promotional Heinz Tomato Ketchup with Jalapeno delivered to my door. I'd lusted after them openly on Facebook but shied away from buying any because of the shipping cost. Somebody, maybe Heinz Ketchup, or one of my crazy sweet friends who call me "The Condiment Queen", made this happen. No ID on the sender. So, how FUN is that?
Lately I've been on the receiving end of all kinds of kindness and goodness. What's going on here? Wait, take that back. No need to question why, just the need to say, Thank You! Yes, I say thank you to the thoughtful and generous family members, AND friends, AND acquaintances. All of whom have gone out of their way to feed me, amuse me, encourage me, and just generally make the past several lean months a lot easier to handle. You all know who you are. And to the strangers, may you blessed in multiple ways as someone else 'pays it forward' to you. Bless you. Peace.
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Don't forget to do your part of the pay it forward! Easy to make it a habit-did 10 hours last week-will come close to that this week-there's always someone nearby that could use some help or a smile.
You know it! That's the best part of the deal!