Do Kinder Acts

Right after waking up, I didn’t remember exactly what I had dreamed about, but I did remember the system: Do Kinder Acts. It is a very simple system, where everybody is inspired to do better, ever kinder acts.

It isn’t about doing grand things. It is about the small, simple things. For example, John helps Jennifer carry her groceries. After this act, Jennifer feels inspired to reciprocate by doing better, kinder acts, perhaps by helping two people carry their groceries, Bob and Alice, instead of one.

This isn’t a utopian fantasy, either. A personal example: While driving my car once, another driver started using their horn aggressively. At the moment, I chose to move my palm up and down to indicate “slow down, we’ll fix this”. The driver shook his head in disbelief and leaned back slightly, as if he were waking up from some sort of trance. He became calmer. Now, imagine an opposite reaction, where I react with aggression; then we would both fall into the same trance. Aggression transmits aggression. Calm transmits calm.

What’s a kinder act? How can I do something that the other will perceive as kind? Those are the questions worth directing our energy toward.

I wrote about On Positivity. The tl;dr is that when people are positive, when they feel heard, understood, and accepted, their world and perspectives become wider; they start accepting more, growing more flexible, and their love and understanding expand. In a negative state, they contract, the world becomes narrower, their focus shifts to the negative; naturally, to get rid of it.

A system like this could change the default tone of human interaction, resulting in peace, harmony, and love.

Starting is simple, too. Reflect on these two questions daily:

1. What kinder acts did I perform today?
2. How can I perform better tomorrow?