A recent magazine article profiled a woman who, after turning eighty, decided to celebrate her birthday in a different way. Inspired by a friend who decades earlier gifted a mutual acquaintance with twenty-one roses on her twenty-first birthday, the woman began contemplating how she could pay it forward and help others—all while rejoicing in her long life. As she started to pull together a plan to hand-deliver eighty dollars to eighty friends and relatives, ask them to gift it to someone in need, and then send her a note to tell her about the experience, the woman had no idea of the positive impact her plan would have not just on the world, but also on her. As the notes detailing one amazing experience after another started to fill her mailbox, the woman soon realized that even the smallest of gestures have the power to spread monumental joy. Her most important takeaway lesson was that in her efforts to help and lift others, her life was forever changed as well.
We all know that life is not easy. It is full of just as much heartache as joy and just as many challenges as effortless tasks. When we are able to detach from the unhelpful practice of comparing ourselves to others, we also know deep inside that none of us are better than anyone else. We are all here to love, learn, struggle, and celebrate. No matter how much money we have in our bank accounts, we are all exiting this life the same way. Wherever we reside in the world, we are more alike than we imagine.
Every morning when we awaken to begin a new day, we are presented with the opportunity to transform the world around us with kindness. Paying it forward doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. It can be as simple as buying a cup of coffee for a friend or stranger, inviting a widowed neighbor to dinner, offering a genuine hug to someone who is suffering, taking in the neighbor’s trash can on a windy day, writing a thank-you note to a friend or co-worker who picked up the lunch tab, whispering encouragement to a young adult struggling to find himself or herself, or apologizing to someone for being impatient, rude, or angry during a time when portraying a calm presence would have been a better choice.
In paying it forward, we are not only reminding others of the importance of kind gestures, but also ourselves. While it is easy to become caught up in the busyness of life, it is also just as easy to slow down, take a look around, and realize that someone needs you right now. That someone may be a stranger, a client, your company’s CEO, or someone you love more than anything.
To transform your thinking toward paying it forward as often as possible, remember the three words you learned when crossing the street for the first time: Stop. Look. Listen. Someone needs hope. Someone needs encouragement. Someone needs love. Someone needs to know that in the midst of navigating this often-challenging life, there is light.
In the act of gifting someone with a tiny moment of joy in this imperfect existence we call life, you give yourself the greatest gift of all: the knowledge that we are all in this together.
Make a difference.
“A purposeful act or extension of kindness to another is never wasted, for it always resides in the hearts of all involved in a chain of love.”
―Molly Friedenfeld
Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.
