I have a small addiction to scrolling through posts on Facebook. Ninety-Nine percent of the time, when I'm bored, I just hit the app on my phone and start scrolling. I don't really read what friends post on my timeline about themselves...I'm not saying I don't read them, but I usually read them and read-on. I have a bad tendency to stop on the click-it posts that the Facebook algorithms have deemed me most likely to stop on, and, yeah, they're right, sue me! (But not really, so, don't sue me, please.)
Anyways, I was scrolling, as is my wont, and came across a post from a friend titled: #DoGoodRecklessly. It was a post with a bunch of screenshots of people telling stories about the times that they'd helped or been helped by another person.
Today's world is practically bred on cynicism.
Does she really need help? I bet it's a scam. He's just gonna use that money to buy drugs!
Maybe or maybe not, who can truly say except the person who is being acted upon.
But this post, this whatever it was, wasn't saying to be the acted, but to be the actor. Don't "not" act because you don't trust the actee; act because doing a good deed breeds good deeds in others.
I was sitting in a Starbucks drive thru, waiting for my turn to pick up my drink and pay. Now, I'm the asshole Starbucker who orders like three drinks at a time that are going to last me the whole day and a half or until my next fill-up run. The person in front of me, who I didn't know from Adam, apparently paid for my order. No reason, just did it. For the rest of my day, I smiled because of it. I tried to pass it on, whether buying someone else's order one day, or helping a grandma get her bags to her car at the grocery store, didn't matter, I just wanted to pay it forward.
And that's the point of #DoGoodRecklessly. Recklessly not meaning being stupid. Don't go to a stranger's house and offer to clean it for them - WAY too much can go wrong and that can honestly be dangerous, but GIVE recklessly, OFFER recklessly, HELP recklessly, because in this world, we have each other, and when so much of the news and social media is all about what we DO HARMFULLY to one another, Do Good Recklessly to bring back the beauty in life.
This is not about doing good to be seen doing good. Do good just to do it. Share because sharing REALLY IS caring, and CARING really does make a difference. It doesn't take money. Stop on the side of the street and let the ducks pass safely in front of you. Listen to the story the old woman at the gym can't help but tell you because she has no one else to tell it to. Buy a cup of coffee for someone else, or share your sandwich if that's what someone needs. But #DoGoodRecklessly, and let's make that what we tell stories about, let's make that what we make OUR stories about, and let's change the world with it.
In case you were interested, here is the LINK for the original post that I saw that inspired this. And because I'm interested, if you have a minute, tell me something good you did, even if it's as little as picking up that extra paper towel in the bathroom someone dropped. You're doing good, and I thank you for that.
