F ³: Aesop and IALAC

 

No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted. - - Aesop

That’s been a favorite quote of mine for a very, very long time. It’s on my mind this morning after a trip to the Elkridge Walgreens for my flu and COVID injections. (My goodness, that’s a nice Walgreens!) The pharmacy employee who gave me my shots was warm and pleasant. And as I left, another store employee beamed at me - - “I like your shirt!” she said, and then truly listened to me when I responded. 

Such small things. Yet they carried me through the rest of the day. I felt motivated to drop by a friend’s newly-constructed Little Free Library to donate a book. I sailed through my list of chores. I felt - - I don’t know - - better about myself. 

It reminded me about the story I heard in a professional development workshop about a concept called IALAC. The IALAC story was created by educator Sydney Simon. The letters stand for I Am Loveable and Capable. Simon created IALAC to address with students how “put-downs” negatively impact us and make us feel less loveable and capable. Each one tears away at our self-esteem.

What I experienced yesterday was that story in reverse. Each small act of kindness built up my sense of self esteem. 

A friend of the blog introduced me to the SECU Kindness Campaign. SECU is Maryland’s largest credit union.

In the fall of 2020, the SECU MD Foundation had an idea. As the world continued to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, which left people feeling disconnected, lonely, and anxious, the foundation decided to spread kindness through a month-long Kindness Campaign.

It’s still going on. Every October, SECU gears up for their Kindness Campaign. 

It was simple really. SECU employees set out to brighten someone’s day by doing things like baking cookies for their neighbors, leaving kind messages in chalk on sidewalks, volunteering at their favorite non-profit organization, and paying for someone’s coffee. Through one kind act, we could create a kindness ripple effect as people paid kindness forward.

They’ve created an entire website devoted to the Kindness Campaign.  Anyone can participate. They have all sorts of ideas there to get you started. Now, they are actually logging and counting individual acts of kindness with a goal of reaching 500,000. If that’s your thing, you can certainly add to their growing collection. There’s a place on the website to submit them.

As for me, I don’t particularly care if anybody counts them. I am more interested in the acts themselves. I’m not so good at the organizational aspects.

Now, it’s probably good to remember that acts of kindness should be made with the recipient in mind. In other words, it should be something that feels good to them. That can be hard. Deep down inside a lot of us are just basically kids who think that gifts are about giving something we would want. There’s an old joke about a Boy Scout determined to help a little old lady cross the street when she doesn’t actually want to go. So he just picks her up, carries her, and deposits her on the other side - - and walks away feeling accomplished.

I’m not sure that could be logged as an act of kindness.

An example: let’s say you love hugs. And you believe that giving out free hugs would be a fabulous act of kindness. Not everyone likes hugs. You can’t just go around giving them out willy-nilly. There should be some thought involved, not to mention consent. For heaven’s sake don’t force your act of kindness on someone and don’t think less of anyone who doesn’t receive it with what you consider to be an appropriate amount of gratitude or enthusiasm. 

In conclusion, a story:

Last year in October, on a Tuesday afternoon, there was a lockdown at the school where my husband teaches. It was a frightening day for a lot of us. You may recall the called-in threats persisted for a while after that. It was a time of uncertainty and unease. 

About a week later I opened my door to find this:

It was a lovely pot filled with soil and accompanied by seeds, all ready to plant. And it was an act of kindness from my Oakland Mills neighbor who introduced me to Kindness Month. She had been thinking about how scary all those lockdowns had been for me. So she reached out.

And it was such a meaningful sign to me that I was not alone in my worry. That there were others who noticed. 

Every day I am confronted with examples of people who espouse hateful and bigoted views and whose actions hurt others. I worry that it is eating away at my desire to be kind to anyone. I think that all this ongoing toxicity weakens the inner strength inside us to feel capable of connecting with others. It is easier to withdraw, to emotionally “hunker down” and protect oneself.

Perhaps we are every bit as “locked down” as we were in 2020, and every bit as much in need of a challenge to be kind.