Acts of Kindness

As the Year of the Dragon enters its final months, my Year of the Snake I Ho Chuan team is gearing up for their UBBT challenge. As has been the case with all previous student UBBT teams, the acts of kindness log continues to be one of the most vexing requirements for my students. This requirement seemed somewhat redundant to me when I first challenged the Ultimate Black Belt Test but by midway through that first year, acts of kindness became the flagship requirement for my entire challenge.

I am a kind person. I tend to do kind things. Logging these kind acts seemed somewhat superfluous and perhaps a little narcissistic. Why would I take the time to write down an act that is just second nature?  Does not the benevolence of the act become somewhat tarnished if I am keeping score? All these questions and more went through my head as I prepared for my first UBBT. Since I had a gajillion other requirements to track and log I decided to stop thinking so much about the acts of kindness requirement and just do it. That’s when something wonderful happened.

The act of logging my kind acts made me much more mindful of the acts of kindness I was performing everyday. I was confirming what I knew all along - I am a kind person. Yet while I was busy patting myself on the back over my keen awareness of these kind acts I was performing, I became aware of all the opportunities to be kinder that I was missing. The simple act of making eye contact with a convenience store clerk and smiling could have a positive impact upon both of our days and yet this simple act was not something ingrained in my daily repertoire before I started logging my acts of kindness. Taking a moment to appreciate the sorry state of health of the cat that was harassing the fish in my fish pond before chasing it off, brought a new friend into my world and changed my life forever.

Logging my acts of kindness have made me a kinder person by keeping me aware of how my actions affect the world around me and directly impact the quality of my life. Happiness is found in a single moment. Awareness is the key.

“Those who make compassion an essential part of their lives find the joy of life. Kindness deepens the spirit and produces rewards that cannot be completely explained in words. It is an experience more powerful than words. To become acquainted with kindness one must be prepared to learn new things and feel new feelings. Kindness is more than a philosophy of the mind. It is a philosophy of the spirit.” - Robert J. Furey