Doing random acts of love and kindness

Studying and practicing gratitude has changed my life in the last five months. For example, it used to be really hard for me to give gifts. I would buy gifts for people and not be able to give the gift to them due to some sort of fear of rejection or painful comment on the gift.

This last week I was able to:

● gift a favorite waitress going on vacation a modest amount of cash and wish her a great vacation;

● give a friend a birthday card with a note that I knew would be funny;

● help another friend in a moment of stress to remember their mindfulness/meditation in a way that lead them to immediate serenity;

● suggest to a lady that was overwhelmed with deaths in the family to be mindful of the moment, it turned out she had tremendous mindfulness/mediation skills and went in a 10-15 minute reflection on happier times with family members;

● giving not merely a compliment but strong encouragement to a young nervous waitress doing a great job to have more confidence in herself in a way that clearly helped her be grounded in a warm positive place.

That is all new behavior for me. It feels wonderful to be able to help others with words & deeds in a way that I always wanted to be able to do in my life, but never had the skills, insight, and experience to be able to do it on a daily basis in pleasant small ways.

I am blessed and grateful for how studying gratitude has improved my relationships with friends and strangers in my life. It is a miracle to see this much progress in my relationships at the age of 52.