Random Act of Kindness

We're bombarded with news of bad things happening all the time. Terrorist attacks, shootings, even car accidents and natural disasters. Turn on the evening news and it's only occasionally that they report on happiness. I think that's why people love random acts of kindness--they're a reminder that there's good in this world and some of that good might just come our way.

I've wasted away many hours on YouTube and Tumblr and BuzzFeed and any other site that lets people show the good in the world, and one of them truly inspired me. Inside a RedBox DVD, someone put a little money in the case and encouraged the person to get a snack. Today, I rented a movie from RedBox (The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials) and thought it was about time I made someone's day, at some point. So like the Tumblr post I saw that one day, I put in a little money and a note telling the eventual unsuspecting recipient to "Enjoy a snack with your movie!" It's the least I could do to hopefully brighten someone's day.

And that's all that random acts of kindness really are. I will never know who gets this little surprise, and it doesn't matter, as long as that person opens up the DVD and smiles. I know I smiled returning the movie. Pay it forward.

As for a happy video, this happens to be one of my favorite Pay It Forward videos. Enjoy.

Unfriended

Every now and then I go through my social media contact lists and purge people out. These are people I don't really care to hear updates from, or, in even rarer circumstances, people I don't want knowing what's going on in my life.

Social convention these days says that when you meet someone and have a connection with them--even if it's just for a day, or less, such as a party--you need to "connect" online. To share photos and funny memories of that one moment together, of course. But photo/one memory sharing alone is a difficult task, so we as creatures of the 21st century often just open up our lives and let people in, the thinking being, "He's a fine person, what does it matter?" And in reality, it probably doesn't. I very much doubt that someone that ends up in my social circle, even along the periphery, is a murderer. Or a stalker. Or a murdering stalker. So what does it matter if Random Jane sees that I went crazy watching Georgetown eke out another close basketball game, or sees photos of my trip to the other side of the world?

This picture has nothing to do with the post,
but I felt the need to break up the text with
something pretty. So here's a picture from
Nosy Be, Madagascar, that I took about one
year ago today. I really love this shot!

But is that the point of social media? No. And honestly, I don't necessarily like when my Facebook News Feed gets inundated with people I don't actually care about, or feel like I share anything in common with other than this random one time. I want my social media to connect me to people I want to hear about, to see about, and to engage with. I know, I know, you can edit the preferences on your News Feed, and I have done that. I have trained it well, and now it in general only shows me updates and statuses of people I want to see. Every now and then it sneaks in something else, which I take as a happy exception rather than an annoying rule. Now my social media connects me to people I feel that I have a social connection to. These are people I have more than one thing in common with, more than one memory to look back on with. Even though I care more about some people in my News Feed than others, I feel confident that I'd be OK seeing an update from anyone I am currently friends with on Facebook.

To get there, though, I had to be brutally honest with myself, and I went and purged people out of my Facebook friend list.* I felt like I was violating some sort of community code doing this on such a large scale. I feel like society accepts unfriending a person here or there because there was a falling out, or the person happens to be an ex (often related to the former position), but I almost feel guilty unfriending people. Why? Why should I feel guilty controlling who has access to information about me? Why has society made this rule that you must be connected to anyone with whom you ever crossed paths? Nevertheless, brutal self-honesty served me well, and now I actually enjoy looking at my Facebook News Feed. Every post I look at makes me think of the person. Some are by people I see every day, but some are for people I haven't seen in 20 years but still care about. That is why I use social media.

And I can't admit to having been in Madagascar without
sharing a picture of a lemur. So ta da! Here's a lemur!

To all my social media friends: congratulations on surviving another purging! I hope that you think of me the way I think of you. I hope you see my posts, even if it is just once every couple of months, and think, "Yeah, he is/was a cool kid. I wonder what he's up to these days." And then you click on my profile, get your fill, and move on for the time being. Or if you're feeling sentimental, you reach out. Because I like when people reach out. I like reaching out too. A few months back I wondered if it was weird for me to comment on a post by someone I hadn't seen in many years. I was told it wasn't, and now I make that my rule. If I like something, I'll like it. If I have a comment, I'll comment. I hope 2016 is a year I interact even better with the people in my life, both in-person and on social media. Just remain friended!

As for a video that makes me happy, I heard this song on the radio recently and fell in love with it. And it actually sort of fits this post. So enjoy it too!

*I know I keep saying Facebook here, but I also do this, although less frequently on Twitter. And I haven't figured out Instagram or Pinterest or SnapChat or What's App or any other social media sites/apps to need to worry about this on those.