The holidays should be more about giving and less about shopping.
During the holiday season we are bombarded with messages from companies that make luxury goods. Buy a luxury car for your loved one—do people really buy cars for their loved ones for Christmas? Buy this expensive piece of jewelry for your significant other, and on and on it goes. The message of the holiday season from Thanksgiving day to Christmas is to buy as much as you can to show someone you love them—even if it buries you in debt.
I am guilty of trying to buy happiness over the holidays and so are many of you reading this post today. That being said, a couple of things have changed my mindset this past week. One of those things is that in the building where I work there is an elderly man who is still working. I do not know if it is because he needs to or if it is because he wants to. I seem to cross paths with him on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; I am going out for a walk as he shuffles in all hunched over. One day while walking out of the building I caught a glimpse of his lapel pin, the Marine Corps insignia. This elderly gentleman was a Marine in his youth. The next time I saw him coming into the building I held the door open for him and said, "Semper Fi Marine." The gentleman immediately stood up straight, smiled at me, and with a twinkle in his eye said "Thank You." I then asked him when and where he served. He told me he had been in the Pacific in World War II. He named places that were battles in a history book to me, but very real to him. I never did get my afternoon walk in that day, but I did not mind. It was a joy to sit down and talk to this gentleman and I could tell I had made his day by noticing he was a Marine and taking some of my time to share a story or two with him.
The second thing that changed my mindset is in some ways kind of silly. It is a list someone posted from Buzzfeed called 35 Pictures That Prove The World Isn’t Such A Bad Place*. That list, silly or not, shows nothing more than random acts of kindness. Those random acts of kindness are what this holiday season life should be about.
During the holiday season everywhere we look we are flooded with advertisements to buy more and more stuff, whether we need it or not. This year and every year going forward I am going to make sure that I pay it forward. I ask each of you to do the same. It can something as simple as dropping off some fresh cut flowers at a nursing home to be given to someone who does not have many visitors to holding a door open for someone. It does not have to be much—just being kind to a stranger, which makes the world a better place one smile at a time.
What will you do as your random act of kindness this holiday season?
*Number 27 reminded my of when I was in first grade. A classmate used to steal my lunch out of my locker everyday because she was hungry. When my mom figured out what was going on she started packing two lunches. One for me and one for the girl who was stealing my lunch.