What is Love For Anyway?

Next week is a pivotal week. As we celebrate love on St. Valentine’s Day, we realize that love is to be shared. It’s something you can hold onto only if you give it away. 

Last week I wrote about how I enjoy books and sharing them with others, giving you lots of options about how to do so or support nonprofits that do. I guess I was subconsciously gearing up for International Book Giving Day on Valentine’s Day.

V-Day is also when we celebrate One Billion Rising to dance against violence done to women worldwide. I wrote about that in January so people could decide how and with whom they were going to dance in support of it.

But next week is also one of my favorite weeks of the year because it’s Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) Week. Back in January, I warned you that it was coming with my story of how Courtney Fell led a bunch of kids to do random acts of kindness. She had some great ideas for acts of kindness.

Now it’s time for even more. The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation suggests the following for RAK Week 2013:

Monday, Feb 11—Smile at 10 strangers.
Tuesday, Feb 12—Buy something for the person in the line behind you.
Wednesday, Feb 13—Reach out to someone you haven't talked to in a while.
Thursday, Feb 14—Bring a treat to a neighbor or your co-workers.
Friday, Feb 15—Donate your time or money to a local charity.
Saturday, Feb 16—Cook a healthy meal.
Sunday, Feb 17—Let someone go in front of you in line.

Pretty simple, huh? I hope these ideas are something you can put into practice. But they’re just the beginning. There are so many random ways to show kindness. There’s a military base near me and the security guards stand outside all day in the heat or cold. I like to bring them a snack or drink as a treat and they are always grateful. RAK has 282 more kindness ideas as well. You can google “random acts of kindness” to find even more.

Back to International Book Giving Day, RAK has a Reading Nook with books full of kindness, so if you’re looking for a good book, check it out.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, people have been doing 26 acts of kindness for the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting at NBC newscaster Ann Curry’s prompting so if you haven’t started on those, next week’s a good time to start.

Doing this blog is a great privilege. I get to find out about wonderful people who help others and the amazing ways that they do it. Please send me an email to anne@annesanders.net to share what you do. And have a great Random Acts of Kindness week.