by Bob Banner
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roving-Circles-of-Kindness/319843181380990
As I was stopped at a light, I looked around and saw a gas station market. Just days before I made a promise to myself that I would be a bit more keen about being attentive to the thoughts that were drifting in and out of my head or thoughts that were seemingly dominating my internal conversation. As I was stopped, I noticed the thought about what I would WANT from that store.. hmmm some chocolate, a cold coffee, a bag of chips... And then suddenly my "new" mind kicked in and evaluated the thoughts and said, "wow its all about you, what you can get from what you see or what you think you need.. as if you are some kind of permanent consumer." I relaxed about the criticism that the new voice had given me. I welcomed it and then another thought came, not right away, but it came because of that specific inner dialogue. And it goes like this: why not intend on doing something kind to someone? Why not put that focus out there and if you see anything that needs to be done, wherever you are, respond to it...
And a couple days later, since often it takes some days to gestate some new ideas, I was walking back from shopping at Trader Joes buying food and goodies for ME. The idea struck me, after I put everything in the trunk, and looked around and saw a woman was about to finish putting her groceries in her trunk. I casually walked over to her and just as she lifted her bag from the shopping cart I offered to park it in a nearby parking place for shopping carts. She said that would be lovely and thanked me. I proceeded to take mine and her cart and parked it.
Wow, I thought to myself, that was simple, straightforward, not a lot of planning, it wasnt about changing the world, I didnt have to come up with some marketing plan and strategy for altering someone else's behavior. It sortof just happened. And then it happened again when I was walking around my neighborhood a couple days ago and saw from the corner of my eye an elderly woman bending over to grab some groceries. I instantly went over to her and picked up the bag and asked her where I could place the bag of heavy groceries. We chit chatted for about ten minutes and even though she was elderly and had a difficult time bending over, her eyes were gloriously clear and it was indeed a joy to converse with her.
So, the next stage of this whatever you want to call it, is to create a facebook page and call it Roving Circles of Kindness so that other people who either need inspiration for kindness activities can get it, or if people have done something either alone or with a friend or a group of people, they can simply report their actions and post them on the wall of the page. Pretty cool, huh? And who knows what can or will evolve? Who knows what band of roving kindness folks can come up with? Perhaps a Saturday afternoon for an hour get 5 friends to go to the mall and just do acts of kindness.
Granted, we have flash dancing, flash mobs of laughter, flash bouts of singing and standing still like statues and now we see more flash mobs of meditation... its all very good and can inspire people to feel good. Perhaps they will feel so good that they wont need to shop so much? Perhaps they will get so inspired that they will create a cool page with inspiring activities of some sort or another. And perhaps change the world with positivity solutions and random acts of kindness.
Anyway, I promised that it would be short and simple. So there you have it... and the FACEBOOK PAGE is here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roving-Circles-of-Kindness/319843181380990
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Bob Banner is publisher of HopeDance, screens FiLMs in a number of cities in California, writes articles, interviews pioneers, posts inspiring cool stories, has over 30 listservs covering different topics, from social justice to sustainability and happiness and laughter and awakenings.... He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
