I'm Ba-ack!
Don't make folk feel like Window Air Conditioners!
By W. Owen Thornton

Hello everyone.  I have been gone a long, long time.  You would think humankindness was no longer a priority in my life.  Far from it.  I appologize for my absence.  Several technical problems as well being too tied up with my Master's Philosophy degree have prevented me from being here.  But the technical problems are disappearing and the Master's work-load is coming under control, so I'm able to make a quick announcement now, and I'll make a more substantial post in a little bit.  I'm hoping a few days, not a few months.

For now, I'm going to wax philosophical.  My technical terms will be subject and object. A subject is a person ... someone like you or I.  But we CAN also be objects ... that 'person over there with the briefcase and yellow scarf'.  We are both subjects and objects simultaneously.  In the work world we are Kyle or Sierra, doing our job in work carol number 285 and 312.  To our bosses, most of the time we are subjects: Kyle who zones out and gets his work done, or Sierra, who brilliantly presents materials to the staff.  But these gifts we bring to the workplace, these contributions we "subjects" make can be objectified.  Boss's can and do see us as assets to the company.

In regards to human kindness it seems "okay" to consider us to be objects ... a part of a team of people who contribute skills towards our company.  People are business assets.  My concern here is this.  Managers should never objectify people to a person's face.  A subject should never be made to feel like an object (even when we know we 'are' objects).  When you objectify a person, make them appear to be an object instead of a subject, you diminish a person ... you make them a "thing" instead of a person. 

I know someone who had this happen to them recently.  My first goal was to confirm to them that they are still a subject ... that they ARE a person ... not just an asset that can be added into the benefits of the "bottom line".

Subject/object situations can be difficult to handle.  But remember: treat a subject like an object to their face ... and you've dehumanized them.  You've made a person feel like they are no more important than a window air conditioner. 

For the sake of human kindnness ... always treat subjects as subjects.

Toodles

and be kind to one another out there, eh?

On January 26, 2011, I conducted a talk on human kindness at Wilfrid Laurier University.  The talk was entitled "Are We as Kind as We Think We Are?"  Naturally the answer is, "No, I don't think so!"  I enclose here, the powerpoint presentation for anyone who might like to review this material.  The Powerpoint presentation will have some holes in it, as I did embellish points and tell stories about things which do not appear there, but for the most part, I think it is comprehensible and it may be something you will enjoy.  Take care.

Owen

Are we as kind as we think we are?

152-18-12-2010

Celebrating Over 150 Articles on Human Kindness!

Be Contagious: Be … Glitter

By W. Owen Thornton

What does it mean to practice human kindness all the time?  I’ll hold back the part where I address whether we can practice human kindness all the time and talk about what it means to do so in theory, at any rate.  I think practicing human kindness all the time means that we place being “human glitter” at the top of our priority list.  The next thing we require, then, is a definition of what it means to be human glitter.

We know what real glitter is when we work with it.  Glitter often comes in clear plastic bags or tubes and it is used in art projects.  We lay down some glue in a strategic place and we dust the glue with glitter and voila!  We have a nice sparkly addition to our art project.  Interestingly enough, I think there are now two components to what it means to be glitter in real life, even from this ‘artful description’ of how it is used.

First we do need to have some glue about us, if we’re going to practice human kindness all the time.  We have to have some stick-tuit-tiveness!  We have to be determined to make the world better around us, by giving the glitter of the world a place to rest.  And we have to know where to apply that glue, don’t we?  Cover the art project entirely with glue and the glitters loses its luster.  So we have to be strategic about human kindness … we have to apply it where it can be seen, accepted and appreciated.  I do think we can throw ourselves out there and that it won’t be appreciated.  We need to learn where and with whom we can practice human kindness.  However, if asked to determine how to judge this, it is always best to err on being generous with human kindness rather than being stingy.  It is better to have practiced human kindness and lost, than to not practice human kindness at all.  Let me name the human quality I give to the glue in relation to a glue/glitter art or life projects.  I call the glue “intelligent dogged determination.”  We need to be intelligent about where to use it and have dogged determination in order to hold onto the glitter once it is used.  Now we have to still talk about the glitter itself.

Glitter never goes precisely where you want it.  I mean it does stick to glue, but glitter also falls off our art and life projects and … it goes everywhere.  There seems to be something quite fascinating about the analogy I’m making here.  We need to know where and when to apply glue … we need to be determined to continue to practice human kindness in specific situations, but we also see that once we add the glitter that human kindness is the result from our glitter-drop.  And we know that glitter goes everywhere.

Glitter on the glue is fun and eye-catching.  Glitter inspires you to want to use glitter on your own.  And … glitter refuses to stay where it lands.  It’s a wanderer … a traveler … a “go wherever I can” sort of substance.  Glitter rubs off on people.  This is why we need to practice human kindness regularly.  We have to keep putting the glitter out there in order to inspire others to do so as well.  And glitter makes you laugh.  You can merely walk through a room where glitter has been used and find that it is contagious.  It’ll be on your clothes, your skin … and your hair.

And I don’t know about you, but I think glitter is about love, too.  For if you have ever seen glitter on the skin of someone you’re attracted to … or if you’ve ever seen glitter in the hair of someone you care about … doesn’t glitter make them look like an angel?  Doesn’t glitter upon someone say that they are fun and fun-loving?   Doesn’t it say that they are someone who is willing to go out into the world and have fun … even if they didn’t deliberately put the glitter there in the first place?  Glitter makes people sparkle.

And that’s what I’m talking about.  When it comes to human kindness we should sparkle.  We should be doing the kinds of things that need to be done such that those activities create human glitter.  When it comes to human glitter, we can catch this form of glitter only when we’re paying attention.  Oh sure, sometimes, when someone is doing something particularly nice for us, we can catch them at it and we see their glitter.  But often, when a friend or loved one, or a stranger who might be coming to be a newly loved friend, is talking with us in a quiet moment … it is then that we see their glitter.  We see the joy that they spread to the world simply by them being … them.

We are all glitter.  Every human being on the planet is glitter.  Some glitter becomes burnished and tarnished and blackened (and this is extremely sad), but I believe that we all started out as our own unique glitter colour and that we were meant to share as much of ourselves with as many others as we can … in order to make this world a more beautiful place.

I think back to what I believe now, is the principle lesson in the movie Bruce Almighty.  Morgan Freeman, as God, is talking to Bruce.  God is saying that the problem with human kind is that we are always asking God for help.  But God is trying to say that he gave us the power to do what we need for ourselves … or, if we cannot do that … to find the person or persons who can help us achieve our goals.  We need God for the bigger things in life, but when it comes to achieving what we desire here on earth, we have all the power we require.  Maybe, if you believe in God at all, what we need Him for is to 1. help us find and do that which will really make us happy (for we can be self deceptive), 2. Ask him to place the people in our lives who can help us to achieve that which we desire to achieve, 3. And to have the courage to first ask people for help and 4. Give us the strength to be able to do the things before us that we know we have to do in order to get our dreams – in order that we do not get stuck in a rut!

With this look on life – and Bruce creates the slogan “Be the Miracle” – then miracles can occur every single day because we mere, slow-witted human beings can be miracles for ourselves and for one another.  Lately, I’ve been thinking of the talk I’m going to deliver for the Laurier Student Public Interest Research Group at Laurier on January 26, 2011.  I’ve been thinking about what I want to say about human kindness.  These random thoughts are going through my mind and suddenly, while I’m thinking about delivering a talk about human kindness I see a woman in front of me drop papers.  You know, we use the example of whether or not we hold open doors for others or whether or not we help people who have dropped papers as examples of human kindness and this is only the second time I can remember ever being tested with the “dropped paper” life example.  That last time was a couple of years ago at Western.  I failed and then passed this test.  First I walked by them, and then I turned around and started to help.  This time, while thinking about what I was going to say about human kindness in a talk, I stopped immediately and picked up those papers.  I saw the dropped papers as a test about my human kindness capabilities even as I was helping out.  It felt good to be “instinctive” when it came to a situation like that.  I’ve been lost, or found myself walking home because of a bike or car malfunction where I’ve been praying that someone would help.  And no one did.  Human kindness can be huge!

I think we’re all a little like that some of the time.  We’re all just hoping that someone will stop and chat … stop and really listen.  We’re all hoping that someone practicing the “glitter” lifestyle will stop and be kind.  As you know, I call these small acts of human kindness spontaneous.  These acts ARE important.  In all the evidence I have gathered about human kindness, it seems as though we have the attention span of a gnat.  What I mean is we can set out to be someone who practices spontaneous human kindness, but we so quickly become focused on our own lives that we fail to follow through. 

Remember two stories here.  First people are working with words in jumbled up sentences.  Their task is to put the sentences back together.  The exercise of working with words like this sort of drives the words home into their subconscious I guess.  In this test one group of people worked with words that reminded them of being old, like “old, grey, Florida and slow.”  The other group of people working with mixed up sentences did not work with words like this.  After the two groups worked with these words, the test really began.  They were timed how long it took them to walk to the elevator.  The group who had worked with the words that revolved around age walked slower.  When confronted with the questions of whether or not they knew they had been working with words around age, they all answered no.  The lesson here is that whatever comes in to us influences us, whether we want it too or not.  Live in a negative world and we’re going to be negatively influenced.  It’s hard to be glitter when most of our news is negative.  So, to be glitter, censor what comes into your mind ruthlessly.  There is some good news here however.

My brother-in-law who has also gone to university later in his life, is taking a psychology class.  The good news is that these kinds of trends where we are influenced by information as in the above example only seem to last approximately 20 minutes.  I have two insights here.  First, the bad news is, if we are continually bombarded by negative news, issues or ideas, then our 20 minutes before things wear off, will never wear off … so this will make it harder to be glitter in the wake of all the negativity.  Second, the good news is, we do only get distracted for 20 minutes and if we can censor ourselves from the bad stuff that bombards us, we can at least go back to a neutral status where we have a chance of being in awareness that we originally started out the day attempting to be glitter or to practice human kindness.

The second story I will share with you is the phone booth story.  Here half the folk who had used a phone booth found a dime in the coin return and the other half did not.  In all cases, once the dime was either found or not found a co-conspirator of the test would drop papers once the person turned away from the phone booth.  Those who did not find the dime?  None of them helped pick up papers.  Those who did find the dime?  Most of them did (but not all).  There are two things to take away from this.  Have a neutral experience happen to you, like not finding a dime and this does nothing to your human kindness outlook.  Have a single positive thing happen to you like finding a dime in a phone booth coin return slot and voila … the entire world seems like it is more willing to play.  The good news we learn from this story is that spontaneous acts of human kindness do make us want to be more like glitter.  We are as readily caught up by simple good fortune as we are susceptible to negative influences.  So, helping one person through a door by holding it for them makes them more likely to hold a door for someone else which makes it more likely someone else will help someone pick up papers when they are dropped.  So practicing human kindness is always easier than we think and simple acts are more meaningful that we suspect.

But last, and you know I was getting here, I do want to talk about deliberate, thoughtful proactive kinds of human kindness.  These are the above and beyond acts … the miracles that we can provide for one another.  I want to give you a theoretical big example and a very real-life small one … that’s bigger than you think.  The big example is hearing someone say: “I would love it if I could find an editor for my book.”  Or, “I would love it if someone knew so-and-so where I want to work to see if I could increase my chances of getting a job there.”  So, you have to be in a place to play … maybe you have to be in a mental framework where someone has held open a door for you in the past 20 minutes and this minor spontaneous kind act compels you to:  Call the person at the company where this person wants to work, ask if they will meet your friend regarding a job and then calling that friend and telling them that they should call Jan at XYZ company because they are willing to chat.  That’s the big kind of miracle we can perform for one another.  (And remember all acts of human kindness go out into the universe and give us all the chance to experience even more acts of human kindness – perhaps not directly or a one-to-one correlation, but your world is made better from acts like these.)

And there is a subtle and kind act that doesn’t seem like enough but is sometimes huge.  I have done this for a person recently and I have experienced this gift from someone else.  We can listen.  We can listen to someone and hear their story and empathize and sympathize.  We underplay this gift because it doesn’t feel like enough.  I listened to my friend at UWO recently and she told me what a great help it is just to have a neutral third party, someone not directly involved in her every-day world, to just listen to her and to show that you care.  I guess I show that I care by continuing to ask her if there is anything I can do to help her.  She is so busy, so pushed by her work load (and I think we’re all pushed by that) that I see the weight of the work on her shoulders and I just want to help.  There’s nothing I can do … really.  But it’s in the listening and in the genuine offer to help that comforts her and gives her strength.  I wish I could do more … I wish I could “magic wand away” some of the work.  I cannot.  But I can listen.

I have a friend who does this for me.  And the feeling we get from being listened to is validating, life affirming.  We become “persons” in our own life stories when we are listened to by a caring other.  It is funny when I heard my friend tell me she is grateful for being listened to.  I felt like I wasn’t being a good friend.  I felt this way because I couldn’t find a way to help her.  But in thinking about the friend that I have who listens to me … I wouldn’t want him to help.  I wouldn’t know where to let him into my life where he could help.  But I don’t have to do these things because in listening to me, he has done enough.  I feel grateful for the opportunity to be able to do this for my friend.  I never thought I would be enough … enough of a person for anyone to be seen as someone … someone who is enough to help someone else simply by listening.  So … listen to someone.  It’s huge for them.  And it’s huge for you.

So whether you are a single flake of glitter, say this is a single sparkle on someone’s cheek, or whether you dump your hole tube of glitter upon someone’s life and you change it phenomenally by doing the big miraculous deed for them … I say, human kindness is like being glitter.  I attempted to do this, this year at Laurier.  I attempted to be glitter as a teaching assistant for my students and I attempted to be glitter in my classes with my professors and fellow MA candidates.  Thinking about being glitter is easy.  Thinking about being glitter is a small task.  It is one that you can keep in the back of your mind that doesn’t take up a lot of space.  So I think you CAN practice human kindness 24 hours a day – well it’s harder when you’re asleep, naturally … but I think if we think of being glitter, we can be more “on” … more plugged into what it means to be kind to our “selves” and one another.  We can “Be the Miracle” for ourselves and others.

To close then, I will say this.  God Bless and thank you all for reading this.  May your holidays be filled with joy, loved ones, and human kindness. 

And should you be experiencing sadness at this time of year … because this time of year can bring sadness to the foreground … I encourage you to take a specific time and feel the sadness.  Revel in it.  Roll in it.  Stink up the joint with sadness for a limited time … say 20 minutes.  And in doing so, I think you will free up some space for wholeness and goodness.  Sadness leaves us fractured like shards of glass with different parts of ourselves feeling alone, isolated and hurt.  We are meant to feel fractured but we are not meant to stay in this place.  I don’t think we need to be afraid of our “selves” or our emotions anymore.  I think if we accept our “selves” rather than pretending to be okay all the time (when we clearly are not okay) … if we accept our vulnerability … then we can process our feelings.  Remember … we carry stuff for 20 minutes.  Why not focus on the negative feelings now and allow ourselves to be okay 20 minutes later.  Human beings are miraculous machines.  We can literally change our attitudes on a dime.  It seems silly to think that. But the proof of experiments shows us this is true: and there’s a lot of cause for hope in that notion, isn’t there.

God Bless

Owen

LSPIRG is a student-funded, student-oriented organization at Laurier that envisions a society where people are empowered to be agents of change in pursuit of a just world. Through community collaboration, research, and education, LSPIRG provides opportunities for its members to be agents of change. LSPIRG builds capacity of students and supports them through funding, training, and other resources to help them engage in acts of social change. LSPIRG operates on a Working Group model, which encourages members to initiate events, activities or campaigns in cooperation with other members, organizations and the local community in pursuit of a just world.
 
For more information: www.lspirg.ca

151-19-08-2010

“You know what I didn’t get?  I didn’t get my hug, that’s what I didn’t get.”  Then, Melvin Palmer reached out and hugged someone, getting what he wanted.

                                                -- Boston Legal: Episode: “Thanksgiving”: Season Five

… sometimes you just can’t do things like that for yourself.

                                                -- Owen Thornton

The Human Kindness Club

By W. Owen Thornton BA

Recently (150-11-08-2010: Can We Trace Human Kindness) I wrote about receiving a free gift at a time when money was tight.  I thought that perhaps I had received it, not only because I had been directly kind to others for some time before that, nor because I was in a mental space to receive such a gift but also because I had told someone about what I needed.  I hadn’t asked for it so much as simply laid out my story and that single person had the single, specific, previously-owned item locked away and sitting in his filing cabinet.  It got me to thinking that we might be able to create human kindness clubs: groups of people we know, like or love and trust, to whom we can say I’ve always wanted to … or times are tough and it would be great if I could get a …  It could be a new job, a specific item, finding a group of people who will read our novels, even though you don’t intend to send them out to be published, a contact with a literary agent (my dream … or maybe I should back up and wish that someone could tell me what I need to do with my fiction writing so that my work is good enough to acquire an agent) … etc.

My article today is to encourage you to initiate your own human kindness club.

Gather a group of people together whom you trust.  Trust will be vital as you’ll be opening your heart’s secret desires to them and you don’t want an insensitive person laughing at you or diminishing your dream. 
If you’ve ever heard of the smart concept for dreams or goals, that means they should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timed.  (Google SMART goals and you’ll receive lots of information to help you!)  So “travelling” or “having the ability to travel” isn’t a good goal.  But going to a white-sand beach in Tahiti where you can lay under a palm canopy where it is safe for Westerners before 2020, may well be a good one: good as long as it’s attainable (you can raise the money) etc.  Or, maybe the goal should be to help you get a part-time job so you can raise the money to go to Tahiti and sit on the beach for a week or two.
Only share things/dreams/desires/goals that you are willing to discuss your motive for why you want it.  Hearing your story about why you want: to do, to go, to have, to travel, etc. will help those who will be thinking of you in the days to come, so they can have active emotions about your goals.  This will better enable others to think of you, and to be inspired to help you.
Set your own group guidelines.  Is everyone willing to “play?”  There’s no point including a kind person if they’re never going to take the time to call you when they have an idea as to how to help you achieve your goals/dreams.  And there’s no point joining a club if the receiver of the assistance won’t follow up with a call to a new contact etc.  (Though there could be VERY good reasons why people do not follow up on what we might think are excellent leads or tips!)  People have to be willing to participate on both ends.  You as a group will know what your own guidelines should be.  Some guidelines to include may be:

Setting the frequency of getting together to check in:  It may be that you only have to get together once every six months, maybe only once a year!
Announcing results: do you report only to the person who helped you as to what you discovered, or do you report the human kindness act of helping to everyone so they can see that the human kindness club is actually working?
Limiting the number of dreams/goals per person to a very few.
Creating the flexibility to change goals. 

I’m hoping to cast this kind of group for myself in days to come.  When I received something I needed which I didn’t think I could afford, it happened circumstantially.  I just happened to be talking to the one person I knew who could really help me out.  I think that what I saw in the movie Pay It Forward, (I read the book too) was inspiring, but the people who paid good fortune forward … practiced proactive acts of selfless human kindness after receiving something good for themselves well, they serendipitously stumbled upon situations where they could help others.  I have asked all of us to have human kindness on our radar so that we can do the right thing at the right time to deliberately help someone who needs just the kind of help that person can give.  

What I want to do here, by initiating human kindness clubs is to remove the element of chance of helping others.  When we don’t know what people need, we can’t actively go out and do acts of human kindness to help them.  But were we to know what people most secretly want … well then we could actively target our thinking in specific ways to help them in the most personal set of previously unspoken goals and dreams.  We do a little bit of this in life.  For example:  Bob sees Jan struggling with a perfectly functioning 25 year-old television.  It doesn’t connect to DVD players, it doesn’t have a lot of new features … and Jan can’t afford a new one.  So Bob observes this.  A couple of years later, nothing has changed for the Jan, but now Bob’s father has passed and Bob’s father was a TV-Junkie, buying up new TVs with new features faster than the televisions burned out.  Bob inherits four big televisions and voila, gives one to Jan.  This kind of thing does and can happen, but often, really important things that someone desires or needs and where they can’t help themselves to achieve that goal or dream is unspoken.  So Bob can do nothing to help, because Bob is ignorant of Jan’s real needs.  This is the reason why a Human Kindness Club just might work.

Hey!  I don’t know if it will or not.  But what have you got to lose?

I’m just saying, anything that gives you an edge to help you live the life you’ve always dreamed of … well … isn’t it worth a few pleasant dinners a year with friends so you can share those things with them … and perhaps help them along with their dreams at the same time … whilst, of course, they are helping you along with your dreams.

That’s the kind of world I want to live in.

That’s what I’m talking about.

Cheers

Owen

PS: My mom always wanted to ride in a yellow convertible.  I saw one at a car rental place on my way to visit her in the hospital.  She was ill, dying in fact, but she could have gotten a pass for an hour or two had I rented that car and taken her for a ride.  When I proposed the idea to her it was too late.  She was no longer interested in an idea that had been on her mind for as long as I had known her.  Her dream had died before it had been realized.  That memory plays on my mind and is in part the inspiration for human kindness clubs.  Live life with no regrets.  Live those dreams with some sense of urgency too.  When you get stuck and can’t do something for yourself, whatever the reason, others can help … if we ask them to.

Owen

PPS: this article had numbered lists in the original word document, but numbered lists WILL NOT transfer into this format.  Sorry if this looks funny!

150-11-08-2010

Can We Trace Human Kindness?

By W. Owen Thornton BA

In conversation with a friend, I told him that we were concerned about money.  We’d had a lot of breakdowns of household items of late, and our car was dying and … fees for my Masters Candidacy at Sir Wilfred Laurier University were due soon.  Because I was attending school at the grad school level my wife and I had thought about buying some kind of laptop computer for taking notes and creating powerpoint presentations etc. but we were getting stressed about the added expense.  And then my friend said, “I have an old laptop that I’m not using anymore.  You could have that.”

“Have?  Surely you want …”

“No.  It hasn’t done anything for a couple of years.  It’s just sat in a filing cabinet doing nothing.  Let me see if my assistant can wipe the memory and reinstall the basic software and if she can, it’s yours to have.”

I was and continue to be blown away by the generosity and by the serendipity of this chance meeting (earlier this year another chance meeting ended up with us receiving a free, used television too, so life HAS been good!).  Even if the laptop does nothing but work in an ‘okay’ fashion for a couple of months, it sets back the costs and gives me an opportunity to discover what kinds of things I want in such a purchase.  I wondered why this good fortune had befallen me.  There have been times when I had hoped something like that might have happened and it didn’t.  But this time … out of the blue … when I least expected it … a divine act of human kindness graced my life.

I began to wonder what I might have done to invoke such good fortune.  I don’t think I’m a better person today, than I was say even two years ago (when I wasn’t receiving cool, free stuff) … but that assessment was incorrect too because back then I received a free trip to Disney courtesy of my in-laws.  But surely I’m not any different than I was say five years ago and these kinds of things didn’t happen to me then.  So what has changed?  Now there doesn’t have to be an answer to my question, “Can we trace human kindness to other acts or deeds that we have done in the past?”  My point is we say we do acts of human kindness because they are good for the universe and because when you put good stuff out there … somehow, it tends to vicariously find its way back to us.  We may not have proof of this, but I believe most would say this is an anecdotal truth.  Let me cite two more specific examples of human kindness “tracking”.

I remember when I purchased some nice pens with the corporate logo on them.  For me, they were pretty expensive.  I only bought 50 of them, and gave them away to clients, prospective clients and family and friends.  It wasn’t long after that, that I remember receiving a lot of free pens in return.  Certainly the count wasn’t a one-for-one ratio, and neither were all the pens of the same caliber as mine, but, it was curious that I did receive a lot of pens after giving out a lot of pens.  In one instance, the client so liked the quality of pen that I gave him, that he ordered the same type with his logo on them, and then, he gave me one of them right back to me about three weeks later!

And I remember another time when I was doing a lot of teaching on effective writing, effective listening and dealing with difficult people courses.  I had a “thing” in my classes to reward people with monopoly money when they contributed to the conversation.  The person at the end of the day with the most fake money won a business book.  I remember shortly after doing that for a while that I began to receive free books in return.  I think this one was interesting because I didn’t often receive books I wanted to read, but what someone else thought I wanted to read.  I think in retrospect, that I might have been giving out books in the same manner, so I thought that giving a book strategy didn’t work very well.  (In that case, better to have given gift certificates to a bookstore!)  Now let me return to the free lap-top story.

Now in the instance of receiving an admittedly older, but free laptop, I cannot say that I gave away laptops to others and that because of that one has now returned to me.  I’ve never owned one to give away, so unlike the pens and the books, the cycle of human kindness or my ability to track human kindness hasn’t played out quite so closely.  But I have admitted on these pages that human kindness isn’t always a one-for-one direct correlation.  I believe it was Norman Vincent Peale (one of my heroes (and I have eerie evidence that I predicted the date of his death, so I don’t write fictional stories about real people dying in them anymore!)) who wrote that when good fortune is withheld from you for a long time – good fortune that might even be deserved – it is only because even greater things await you.  You see, human kindness may not be pen/book reciprocal and it definitely doesn’t work on any kind of predictable time-line.  Nor does the give and receive nature of human kindness suggest that the person we give something to is the person who will, in turn, do something nice for us.  We just believe that doing kind things for others (with a “right” motivation) is a good thing and that good things beget good things … eventually.  Another way to look at this is, “You get more of what you send!”

So the answer to my question, can I trace anything that I did that might warrant me receiving a laptop?  There are three parts to this question.  One, it may be that there is nothing I did to warrant that kind of gift.  But maybe it was a host of things that I’ll never know about or consider.  My wife and I did give away a chair to a friend.  And we never have garage sales: we give our stuff to people … so maybe in all that stuff there were other gems for other folk: personal stories of receiving cool stuff at a fortuitous time from their point of view that I will never know about.  I have written a weblog about human kindness for over four years … maybe those good thoughts warrant a free, used laptop during time of financial stress.  Two: I have gone back to school.  Okay, so that’s not a human kindness action specifically.  But it was a kindness to myself to allow myself to go back to school.  And in going back to school, I have created a positive environment for my life that excites me and that gives me the general attitude that makes me laugh and giggle far more than I ever used to.  So maybe it is going back to school that created an atmosphere or a feeling that put me in a position to receive a lap top or going back to school changed my personality such that it made me the kind of person who can both receive a gift and notice with deep appreciation that I received such a gift.  Three, I told someone what I needed.  I wonder if we don’t receive the help we need because we don’t ask for it … or we don’t tell people our stories (whereby they put two and two together and do the very thing we need, according to our story).  I remember the book Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferrazzi who observed that the rich aren’t lucky in getting rich: they ask people for what they need and get the help required.  I’ll be writing more about this in another article.

So, when we are the recipient of an act of human kindness can we trace our own specific acts of human kindness in such a way as to explain why we received something in the nick of time?  The answer may be sometimes, but not always.  Do things come back to us in predictable ways or along predictable time-lines?  No.  So there’s no point in “planning to practice human kindness” for six years in order that you build up enough credit to the universe to have someone give you exactly what you need at the exact right time.  It doesn’t work that way and if you were to make that attempt, manipulating the human kindness cycle of goodness might well corrupt the entire process.  The only human kindness plan we can make in the end, is to be kind generally, over time.  We need to step outside of the blinders of our lives and notice others and what they need and then act accordingly kind whenever we can.  We do this because we believe these kind acts make the world a better place … because we believe that if we do kind acts that sometimes used laptops fall into our hands at just the right time.

So go on.  I dare you.  Practice human kindness right away.  That dream you don’t even know about right now?  It will be completed only by the grace of someone else, who A: doesn’t know your dream right now, but will B: one day do something or give you something that will help to fulfill your new dream.  We throw human kindness to the wind and we forget about it, only to have that wind turn back upon us at times when we most need it.  That’s the kind of world I want to live in.  That’s the kind of world I am attempting to create here.  If I send you a human kindness email once in a while and it reminds you to pop out of your busy, oft-times selfish life (I have a selfish life too!) then it is all worthwhile.  The world becomes a better place.

Cheers and God bless.

Owen

149-10-08-2010

Human Kindness Journeys can be “Good” Scary!

By W. Owen Thornton

In eight days my Masters Candidacy year at Sir Wilfred Laurier University, in the field of philosophy, will begin.  I’m beside myself.  I’m looking forward to it.  I’m scared witless.  Again, I will be the old man of the class, attending university at age 48/49 with people approximately half that age.  What am I doing to myself?

I really am apprehensive.  I know I can do the work as I did four years of undergraduate work.  But Masters is supposed to be harder.  In addition I’ll be a teaching assistant (TA), so there will be more work in that respect as well.  Will I be good in the classroom?  Will I say and do the right things?  I have all sorts of practice in teaching but that mostly comes from courses of my own devising where I taught adults who WANTED to be in the class room.  What about being in a room with people who don’t know a thing about the subject matter … people who are taking a flier on philosophy?  Will I be able to excite them about the subject?  I believe I can, but I cannot be sure.  And how devastated will I feel should I fail even one of them?  (Fairly!)

Human Kindness actions, like taking yourself back to school (human kindness cannot just be about helping others, but must also be about helping your “self”!) can be “Good” scary.  Someone once said that a good risk is like safely passing a car on a two lane road.  When you can pass safely without frightening yourself, the person driving the car you are passing or any on-coming drivers, then it was a good pass.  That doesn’t mean that your adrenalin doesn’t rise, and that you don’t get butterflies in your stomach.  The trick with butterflies, I’m told, is not in making them go away (because you cannot do that when you’re taking human kindness risks) but it is in making them fly in formation so you can triumph when you need to. 

Another thing about “Good” Scary acts of human kindness is to look towards your motivation.  If it is genuine and good, it should ease some of your tension.  My motivation?  I have never enjoyed anything as much as sitting in a class room learning about philosophy.  I find the act energizing and fulfilling.  It is my hope, that as a TA that I will be able to excite every single student into entering a classical education of philosophy first, before they get their degree in whatever else they desire.  Philosophy teaches you how to think, man!  It teaches you how to create an effective argument.  It teaches you about the big things in life that we all wonder about, but rarely take time to think about them.  University should at least partially be about thinking big and not just about thinking about the career we start the day after our four-year degree is over.  We ALL know that once you’re career-bound going back to school is hard, should you ever want to try it (first-hand experience here).  So now is the time to rack up the student debt.  There will be a life-time of work to pay it back!

Lastly, it is ironic that I am entering my Masters year because I went back to school in order to be a better writer and thinker in regards to writing the articles for this weblog!  In doing something for others (weblog), I found something for myself (philosophy).  So maybe that’s entirely unusual circle of good stuff should be a positive sign that I need not be as nervous as I genuinely feel. 

NOTES:

In the weeks to come, I will release articles 150 and 151.  I think, of all the 150 essays I have written for you, I have not printed a few of them.  Some just didn’t work out the way that I intended.  They were often too long, too windy or too complicated.  However, by essay 152 I will celebrate 150 total essay entries in www.thehumankindnessproject.com ‘s history.  I can’t believe I’ve been here as long as I have, writing things about human kindness all these years.

Last, in essays 150, and 151, I will right about tracking human kindness and creating human kindness clubs.  Part of where these two articles are heading is that if we do not tell others what we want, it is difficult for them to help us achieve our goals.  So I will state my goal here even if this idea appears selfish.  (It is not, for I encourage you to tell me what YOUR goals are so that I or someone else can help you along your journey!)  It is my great desire to become a doctoral candidate in the fall of 2011 at a regional university ranging from Toronto to Windsor in the discipline of philosophy.  My ultimate goal is to spend as much time as possible in small classrooms of 30 or fewer students teaching as much philosophy as I can between now and the time I die!  If there is anyone out there who thinks they can help me in this endeavor, contact me through my weblog and I will link up to you via one of my email accounts.  And whilst you are doing that for me, I will continue to do my best for others.

God Bless

Owen Thornton

148-31-06-2010

Being Remembered and Human Kindness

By W. Owen Thornton BA

Human kindness might be about being remembered.  If we do enough acts of human kindness, we might just be remembered in a positive manner.  The problem is I don’t know exactly how to behave in order to BE remembered, at least longer than a generation or two, but maybe, in some cases, being remembered for a generation or two IS enough.  Those who I remember with fondness made a human kindness difference in my life!

Many people who we remember beyond the two generation mark are remembered for the things other than acts of human kindness.  Take a look at those whose lives ended tragically, like Marilyn Munroe, or Buddy Holly: having an earlier than expected and tragic ending is one way of being remembered.  It doesn’t even seem to matter if death comes as a tragic suicidal overdose, which most would have a negative moral judgment against (and would make you think that you would forget such an individual), or if it was by accident:  all you have to have is a great deal of notoriety and some level of talent and die young … and you are remembered long after most “normal” folk.  And you have notorious folk who are also remembered, like Hitler and Stalin.  We remember these folk for the human carnage they invoked on human kind.  These things reveal something else about us too … that we seem to remember those who have done great evil more so than those who have done great positive things.  What we focus on, and why we seem to remember negative things over the positive is a good topic for another article, eh?

I myself don’t seem to have a human kindness hero.  I don’t think about them or him or her at all.  If pressed to come up with a human kindness hero, I might come up with names like Ghandi or Mandela.  But these are the names of extraordinary people in extraordinary times.  What is left for the rest of us who are not necessarily so heroic, or who definitely do not grow up in extraordinary situations?  Like me.  I’m a spoiled white guy growing up in Canada, a privileged nation where the most we worry about is a 17% increase in electricity charges.  Were I to look at things a little closer or rather, to put things into perspective, I live in a place where getting a stable supply of electricity is taken for granted.  There are many places in the world, that were I to even live in a locale where electricity was delivered, it would be doubtful that I would have the financial wherewithal to even own something to plug into a socket!

The only thing I can do to find a real human kindness mentor, it to look back at other ordinary folk whom I knew years ago (I’m 48) and examine their lives to see what about them I remember. 

Granny

I only had one grandparent whom I can remember.  Such is the way of things when you are born a half generation out of sync with the world: all your “generation before” relatives are nearly your contemporary friend’s grandparent’s age.  My granny died when I was 11.  Of her, I remember that she had time for me.  She had time to play cards.  We played rummy and two-handed euchre by the hour.  I do believe she enjoyed playing cards with me.  She was well into her eighties when I knew her, and you might think for someone her age that playing with a child … the years that I can remember, say from aged 6 to 11, might have been extremely boring.  But she had fun and I delighted in playing cards with her.  We played simple games, and I remember winning as much as losing, so we were evenly matched and we never tired of one another.

So there you go: I do know one thing that you can do to be remembered, at least by two generations of folk you leave behind.  (I am two generations away from granny, remember!)  Being remembered through acts of human kindness is simply done by taking time out of your life to do things with others … to do things they would like to do … to do things that may not be your favorite thing, but something that you can simply do to show that you care and care deeply.  I think card-playing with Granny was a great act of human kindness that keeps her memory alive inside of me.

Mom

I think the thing I remember most about my mom is a single image that has at least two human kindness connotations.  I remember her turning away from the kitchen countertop to look at me after she was done some element of preparing the evening dinner.  As she turned she would often be wiping her hands on a towel or maybe on her apron (whatever happened to aprons?).  She would be turning to face me to answer a question or to simply talk to me.  She would talk to me with her back to me while she lovingly prepared a meal.  And she would turn to look at me regularly in order to impress upon me that she loved me, that she loved to talk to me, that she loved having me around to talk to while she prepared that meal for me.

I don’t think that mom talking to me as she prepared dinner is any kind of heroic thing in heroic times … but as a simple act of human kindness it means a great deal to me.  It was a huge thing that helps me remember her.  And this would be what I would have passed on to my children, had I had any.  So, Mom’s simple act of human kindness, of preparing a dinner and talking to me while she did it, this is the kind of thing that allows people to be remembered for acts of human kindness.  It was a huge act of human kindness that has helped make me who I am … a person who has done so very little for others, other than, perhaps, helping to remind upwards of 50 people or so on a very limited email newsletter about human kindness.

Mom’s talking to me and preparing dinner said that I was worthy of talking to … that I was someone worthy of preparing a dinner for.  In the Christian church, emphasized much by Jesus, there’s this little-known thing called hospitality which was so very important in ancient times.  Inviting someone into your home and putting on the nines in order to make someone feel special was a regular occurrence.  We do so little of that now, in these hectic times.  This is a factual statement as found in Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone: we have far fewer dinners with family and friends than we did in the 1950s.  We always think that the future brings about better times, but in the case of dining together and talking to one another, I’m not sure things have been made better.

So there are two other things that can help you to be remembered for acts of human kindness.  Talk and listen to someone is the first.  Listen, rather than hear them. Listening means listening in order to better understand them.  Listening means thinking about questions that will help you better understand what you are listening too.  People do things with others who are important to them so “who questions come first.”  “Who did you do that with?  Who was there with you?”  What and how are the next type of questions that make you a good listener.  Here you learn about how to water ski, or what it’s like to go camping with a family for two weeks at a time.  Lastly, ask the why question.  By the time you’ve gotten through all the answers to the previous questions you know them well enough to ask the personal “WHY?”  "Why" is about why someone does something at all.  It targets their essence … something that should not be asked until you are comfortable with them … until you have invested a lot of other listening before you ask that why question.  Why questions might imply that it doesn’t make sense for people to do that sort of thing … it might be about a judgment against that sort of action … so WHY questions need to be asked out of deepest sincerity. 

"Hearing" people is far different from "listening" to them.  "Hearing" means thinking about what you want to say about yourself or what you want to say in response to what they have said.  A hearing conversation might go something like:

“What did you do this weekend?”

“We went water skiing with friends.”

“Really?  I went to the family cottage with friends too.”

Lest you think this last comment is about making a “listening” connection, “IE.  Going away with friends,” it is not.  It is a hearing roadblock comment.  It says, if you didn’t want to know about what I did on the weekend, and all you wanted to tell me was what you wanted to do on the weekend, why did you bother asking me?  A better “listening” response would have been, “Who did you go water skiing with?”

So if human kindness, at least in our normal, every-day world is about being remembered, then take time for others by doing something they like to do with them, listen effectively, and break bread together.  People who do these things will be remembered far longer than those who do not.  And the common, every-day sort of people we remember will be remembered for the human kindness things they do and … they make the world a better place every moment they live.  You can be someone to be remembered in a positive manner, via human kindness.

Cheers and God Bless

Owen Thornton

147-08-07-2010

“Sometimes, I guess there just aren’t enough Rocks!”

                                                                Forest Gump: the Movie

Human Kindness Sometimes Means Being The Rock

Human Greatness Sometimes Means Being The Rock

By W. Owen Thornton B.A.

A farmer is plowing her field.  Hectares of ground are turned over in the vital task of preparing the earth for seed.  But while plowing is a vital task, it is a boring laborious process … once you’re good at it … and plowing does take considerable skill … but once you’re good at it the miles go by like the senseless amount of time spent sitting in a traffic jam.  It’s boring for most … a necessary task where the result is important but the hours spent in the cab of the tractor are taken for granted: they pass by meaninglessly.  Until the farmer’s plow overturns a rock.  Then everything stops.  Every farmer worth his or her salt stops and has to deal with that rock.  Human kindness demands us to be that rock.  Not always … only sometimes for in all things there is a balance.  Human kindness does ask us to be the earth in many aspects of our lives.  For without earth, there is no place for seeds.  And with too many rocks, seeds cannot grow.  But still, some times we must stop the tractor from plowing … we must be vital, important individuals, and we must dare to be rocks in the middle of the pristine field.  And while being a rock in a field is vital to human kindness … it is very difficult to be a rock.

In the late 1960s I remember farmers still plowed fields while they simultaneously did some serious rock-picking.  Rock picking means literally that: as the field was turned over, fist and head-sized rocks would become exposed and someone would have to pick them up and carry them over to the side of the field.  Once there, the farmer would return later with a wagon and they’d take those rocks to some other part of their property where they might be used as fill for a lane or some other practical use.  But the main point of the operation was that with the rocks gone, it was easier on equipment, and it was easier to plant.  It is the image of a lone rock in the field that makes me think of human kindness.  Think upon that image.  Or, if that doesn’t work because it’s an unfamiliar image to you, then think of yourself canoeing down a stream and you see a rock ahead.  Either way, rocks in the fields and streams of life are all about human kindness.  Here’s my analogy of the rock in the field and how it relates to life and human kindness.

The Rock of Human Kindness

Human kindness and human greatness is about being different.  When it comes to human kindness being a rock is important in the following way.  Life has a taken-for-granted flow to it.  There are many reasons why we are not rocks of human kindness in small situations.  First, we do need to give this situation perspective.  We all take life for granted and miss opportunities to practice human kindness.  1. We let our lives drive us and this means we forget to do the right things: even the little things.  2. We are driven to do tasks within a time frame and when we’re in this mode, we won’t stop to do things that we believe are morally important.  I’ve written about examples like these oodles of times before.  So, people forget to open doors for others and to stop and help others pick up dropped piles of papers or books.  We do this even when we know that good actions beget good actions and that were we to help others, others would begin to help us.  (And this would make our entire world a friendlier place … a place full of human kindness.)  Our problem?  3.  We’re focused on our own tasks to the degree that we do not see areas in life where we could practice little acts of human kindness.  And these are just the little things.  When it comes to big acts of human kindness, we do these even less often.  Say we see a neighbour’s adult child struggling in the work world and we fail to think upon it even for a moment … where if we did we could make a couple of phone calls in order to help that individual out:  IE we might call a couple of people we know who might interview that person for the “right” job.  What’s worse, often that adult child is struggling to make good and we don’t see that they’re struggling.  Florence Nightingale was appalled when she realized that we fail to observe that we don’t observe.

Being a rock of human kindness is difficult because folk like this stand out.  They might be considered softies or soft touches.  No one likes to be taken advantage of because “everyone” knows you are the individual who will help others, but I think you’ll agree with me when I say, “Better to be a softy and do too much for others than be indifferent and demonstrate a distinct inability to care about anyone, anywhere at any time.”  Being a human kindness rock is difficult because being seen as different in human society means we might not fit in.  I think it is tremendously ironic that humans by nature are miracles of uniqueness that cannot live their lives without seemingly sacrificing some part of their uniqueness because they are so concerned about fitting into societal groups.  We sacrifice that about us which is most wonderful, in order to live in a social group: That which we need to survive: society – rounds off our unique individual edges … the parts of us that are different but vitally important, until we come to “not realize” that we’re like everyone else.  In the human kindness “business” being like everyone else and missing opportunities to be kind in small or big ways means human kindness itself is sacrificed.  But to be the rock of human kindness in a field of common dirt is difficult because we will stand out from our society in negative ways that we “think” are important: those of being the soft touch, or fitting in with everyone else etc. 

The Rock of Human Greatness

First, let me be clear.  The Rock of Human Greatness is directly related to being a Rock of Human Kindness.  To do things that are vital for yourself … things that others cannot comprehend why they are vital to you when they don’t seem to make sense … is about practicing human kindness towards your “self”.  I recently asked someone who has taken a host of spirituality courses why they were doing so because, on the surface, they didn’t seem that … well … spiritual.  She said it was because there was a voice inside her head telling her to do this.  It didn’t make sense to her either, but she knew that when she didn’t listen to that voice, or when she deliberately tried to ignore it, that she wasn’t as happy … and so … she took the courses!  The voice is enough to allow this woman to do that which is right for her, in the face of any opposition.

When we fail to do that which is regularly on our minds, because it seems like it is a waste of time, or because others would consider it to be a waste of time, or because it doesn’t make sense according to our society etcetera, we fail ourselves.  And when we fail ourselves we fail the test of expressing human kindness towards our selves.  And if we cannot be kind to ourselves, it is less likely that we will do things or create a world for others where they can be kind to themselves.  And this weblog is about creating a kinder world … so we should be talking about being a Rock of Human Greatness.  What does that mean?

Say you have a dream … a strange dream … a different dream … a dream that sometimes you can’t even properly explain to the people around you.  It can be about learning to dance, painting, singing, taking spirituality courses, writing novels, or it can be about bringing the world a better computer or a safer, greener car (it can even be about having a human kindness weblog) … but at this stage of your life, that dream feels out of reach.  In the image I want to paint for you now, think that each of us is a clump of dirt in a field.  Dreams are like rocks.  When we are part of society doing everything it expects of us, we are like dirt.  We don’t make waves.  We don’t make trouble.  Life can be very good here: especially when you don’t have a dream of your own.  The world can be a beautiful place.  It’s just that with a dream, it can be made beautifuller!  It’s not possible to do really big things when you’re a clump of dirt. 

When we acquire a dream, however it might hit us: dreams threaten to turn us into rocks.  Rocks are things that society notices.  Rock people become noticed just as the farmer stops the tractor and gets off to pick up the rock before continuing on plowing many more hectares of dirt.   Ironically we are all mostly dirt most of the time because that’s the sacrifice we make to be a part of society, but we all dream of being a rock.  We all want to make it big and to be different.  Big dreams turn dirt-people into rock-people.  But being a rock-person of human greatness is difficult.

First there needs to be a warning here.  We all think being a rock person is easier than it appears.  The average millionaire goes broke three times before making that first million.  Anyone afraid of abject poverty and the humiliation of declaring bankruptcy will quickly give up the notion of wanting to pay the price of becoming a millionaire.  And that’s just one example.  I wonder how much difficulty someone like Bill Gates went through to become a computer pioneer and mega-billionaire.  I know from reading about his start in life that there were many, many 24 hour days working on computer cards (yes, programming was once done on computer cards with holes punched in them).  If you don’t want to work that hard at your dream, you’d better not be the rock.  And I can speculate that Mr. Gate’s early life was met with much derision from people who could not envision what he was attempting to accomplish.  Today Mr. Gate’s life looks envious and glamorous, but I’m betting that there were many parts of those early days when he wanted to give up being a rock in the dirt (someone people noticed in perhaps some not-so-nice ways) … days when the burden of the rock of potential human greatness was too heavy … too much of a price to pay for what he was attempting to do.

Dirt-people point fingers at rock people and tell them they are different.  That they don’t fit in.  Big dreams are things that can be laughed at.  Sometimes, rock-people fail to pursue their dreams simply because they don’t want to be as different as they need to be in order to succeed … because they don’t want to be laughed at.  Because we are a social people our need for being social and in community either allows the dirt-people to limit the rock people (so that they give up their rock-dreams and return to being regular dirt) or the rock-people give up their dreams in order that they continue to fit in.  Let me say something about this.

Both the dirt-people who fail to support rock-people – or conversely, the dirt-people who inhibit the rock people from living out their dreams – and the rock-people who give up when facing opposition are in error.  They are in error because human’s fail to accept change.  Being like others is about being like the dirt.  But if every dirt-person who unintentionally succeeded in destroying a rock-person’s dream had triumphed we wouldn’t have inventions like cars or computers or nuclear power or air conditioning.  We’d still be cave people.  I’m sure many successful actors and actresses were tempted to cease being waiters and waitresses and to return home to wherever they came from rather than sticking things out long enough as a restaurant server and going to that last audition that gave them their break-out role.  And had they given up the rest of us would have lost hours of wondrous entertainment.  I mean seriously.  Can you imagine the life of that waitress before the big break?  People would be saying things like, “Why do you bother.  You know you’ll never become Angelina Jolie!  Why put yourself through the hurtful rejections of endless auditions?”  The thing is I’m betting someone said something like that to Ms. Jolie!  But she remained a rock and … look where she is today!

Think of the big things that you like about in this world and imagine what the world would be like without those things.  Do you like green(er) cars?  Can you imagine life without computers and cell phones and i-pods and the dozens of other electronic gadget innovations?  Imagine a world without the wonderful story of Harry Potter given to us by a single mom who, before she sold the first novel was struggling to make ends meet.  I’m betting that she had to be a rock for quite some time before the residuals started coming in so that she could become richer than the Queen of England!

Being a rock of Human Greatness is difficult but necessary.  Hold on to your dreams.  Human kindness fails when dirt-people make trouble for rock-people.  Whenever a dirt-person succeeds in dragging a rock-person back from their crazy dreams, or whenever a rock-person gives up on their dreams because it’s just too much of an uphill climb to make their dream happen … well that’s when our world is made a little worse off.

We need to both be the rock in certain times, and to be the supportive dirt, so that rock people can have a slightly easier time of things before their dream is achieved.  When big things succeed, it is to the benefit of all of us.  We, human society, can make those dreams easier to achieve simply by being encouraging … by opening doors and picking up papers and making that unnecessary but helpful phone call for that young person who needs a better job.  If we do these human kindness things for others, then others are more willing to do necessary things that make our own lives just a little bit better ... and thereby making ours better in the process.

So be the rock of human kindness.  Being the rock of human kindness helps others to become rocks of human greatness.  Examples beget followers of that example.  We all want a better, greener world … a healthier place to live that doesn’t have air quality reports because bad air quality never happens anymore.  We all want meaningful entertainment in our books and our movies and our music, so that when we’re in aspiring rock mode we have examples of things that inspire us to further greatness.  We want more rocks to succeed so that dirt-mode is elevated and made better … a little bit every day.  It is as though each generation of humanity grows a slightly better, overall crop of goodness for those who follow because we supported the rock people of our own generation.

So be the rock.  Do that thing you need to do to fulfill your dreams.  It will make you feel better, it will make you want to be kinder to others (because you’ve been kind to yourself first) and it will make the entire world a better place.

So regardless of how difficult it is to be a rock … in some aspect of your life, BE IT!  DO IT!  Be the Rock in the field.  No one notices the field of life until something extraordinary points it out to us … and that extraordinary thing is just one of us … just one other clump of dirt who has dared to be the rock.  A better world starts with human kindness.

What can you do for your “self” to make you and the world better today?  You’ll know how big of a dream you have by what you’re willing to do to avoid doing it!  J

Cheers and God Bless

Owen