It's Cool to be Kind

Monday, November 13, 2006 is World Kindness Day, which also marks the beginning of World Kindness Week. To honour the occasion I decided that I wanted to commit a planned act of kindness and make my co-workers my lucky victims. The results were touching and surprising.

I knew that I could not accomplish this feat alone so I recruited Joanna to help me. We decided our weapon of choice would be cupcakes to which we would affix personalised notes of appreciation for all 37 people in the department. We could not have anticipated the amount of time required for what seemed at first like a modest gesture, but every moment was well worth it.

Joanna was in charge of baking the cupcakes. I had to make the icing and gather the cellophane and ribbon for wrapping. We got together on Saturday afternoon to assemble the gifts.

"Do you want to make one for Gus?" she asked me with a smile. Gus (real name changed to protect his identity and to prevent confusion as he has the same first name as someone else I regularly talk about on this blog) and I recently endured what will forever be known as The Most Awkward Introduction Ever. I was moved nearly to tears last week when I discovered the lengths to which some people went to in order to get us to meet. I had some reservations about making one for him but I knew that if I didn't do it, Joanna would so at least this way I would have a say in the message.

We finished putting together the little bundles of joy around 10:30 pm and then drove to the office to place them. After that all we could do was wait for Monday morning to come and hope for a good reaction.

When I came in on Monday the office was buzzing about the mystery gifts. I feigned my surprise and announced I had a secret admirer to which others responded, "me too!" For the next while Joanna and I struggled to keep straight faces as we listened to the theories about who the culprit was. Just before 9:00 we were cornered and accused. Neither one of us can lie very well and so the gig was up. These were some of my favourite responses:

• One of the designers came up and hugged me. She said that she had been having a terrible Monday morning until she saw the treat on her desk. The note made her day.
• Another designer concluded (before the secret was revealed) that it had to be a bribe. Later he stopped me and asked, "so you really don't want anything from me?"
• One of the managers emailed Joanna and I a thank you for the creative idea and a promise to return the favour (although that's not at all why we did it!)

Around 9:30 I got an email from Gus. It was the first I had heard or seen of him since we met. He asked me if I'd like to have lunch with him sometime. I wasn't sure if the cupcake had in someway encouraged him to make the offer as I couldn't be certain that he knew it was from me. Hopefully our second encounter on Tuesday will go better than the first one did.

I didn't do this project for the many thank-you's or even for a date. I did it because I wanted to touch and inspire people. My hope was that I somehow positively affected someone's day and that they would be encouraged to pass along the good cheer. I strongly believe in the power of kindness. Even the smallest act can profoundly affect someone and there is no limit to what may result because someone went out of their way to be nice. Sometimes I am lucky enough to see the change. Sometimes I admit my work may have failed to yield any results, but I attribute that failure to something else at work that is much more powerful than I.

In February is Random Acts of Kindness Week. I would really like to do something on a larger scale for this one. I will need to gather a large group of people to do this though. I am hoping I put the spirit into some people and they will want to join me. RAK day is actually February 14 and I can't think of a more perfect date than spending the day together making someone else's day.

Please go out and commit some kindness, I promise you won't be disappointed.