KIND WORDS
Joy For Kindness

"A Token of My Thanks"
The author wishes to remain anonymous
Edited by Shmuel Greenbaum
Printed with Permission of http://www.TraditionOfKindness.org

Today was my first charitable act as a direct result of these emails*.

At the subway station, a young man walked up to me and asked if I had change for a $10 bill. I did not. So he asked the men in the booth. As usual, they did not have change.

At that moment, I realized I had a few extra tokens, so I offered to give a token to the young man. Fairly shocked, it took him a moment and then he accepted it.

He thanked me about four times and I thank these wonderful emails.

As I began writing this story I realized something amazing. I should not have had those tokens. I generally have a monthly pass, but last week I left it on the train.

Last Wednesday, I got on to the R8 outbound train back to my house when I realized that I still had a doctor's appointment to go to downtown. One stop later, I got off and accidentally left the monthly pass on the R8 outbound train.

This happened right after a funny conversation with the conductor that it didn't really cost me anything extra to go back because I had a monthly pass.

As soon as I got on the inbound train, I realized that my pass was missing. Curiously enough the train I caught was the same one I take in every morning.

I explained to the conductor, who recognized me as an R8 usual, and in his own act of kindness, he allowed me to ride into town for free. He even called into base and through them contacted the R8 outbound and asked them to look for my pass.

I was a little upset, but I needed to get to my doctor's appointment and to go home from there, so I bought a few tokens.

The next day, I went to the main office and found that the conductor had brought in my pass (and my USB memory key that was attached to it too THANK G-D).

So as of last Thursday, I had both tokens and my monthly pass.

Thank you so much for these emails, which have brought the importance of kindness and charity deep within my heart.

Additionally, had I not had the ability to share this wonderful story, I would not have even realized the true story at play.

Thank you so much for helping to deepen my relationship with G-d.

* The author receives our "Daily Dose of Kindness" daily e-mails from: http://www.TraditionOfKindness.org

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"Joy For Kindness"
From: Kindness: Making a Difference in People's Lives: Formulas, stories, and insights
By: Zelig Pliskin
Printed with Permission of Shaar Press


Experiencing joy for doing acts of kindness for others will increase the quantity and quality of your kind acts. When you enjoy doing things to help others, you will always be able to find enjoyable things to do. The life of a person who loves to do acts of kindness will be a life of joy.

You may reason that it’s selfish to feel joyous for helping others. Put yourself in the position of the recipient of kind deeds or words. Wouldn’t you prefer that the people who are kind to you feel good about what they accomplish? Compare the following thoughts that might be going through the minds of someone who is doing something to help you.

Consider these responses:

"I hate wasting my time with this person. Why is he bothering me? Why can’t he just leave me alone. I can’t wait until he gets out of here."

-- or --

"I love to spend my time helping this person. I’m so glad that he asked me to assist him. I feel so good in being able to do acts of kindness that I hope he asks me another time."

Of course, we all feel better when someone who goes out of their way to help us enjoys what he is doing.

What if you don’t spontaneously feel joy for the kind acts that you do? Think of the positive spiritual effects your words and actions have on you. Be aware of how you are elevating yourself and becoming a better person. Imagine the good feelings you would have if someone helped you in the way that you are helping this person. By entering his world and feeling what he is feeling you gain a greater appreciation for what you are doing. Some people find this easier to do than others. But as you begin to experience this even a tiny bit, you are increasing your ability to do so.

Imagine feeling intense joy. Think of an event, a situation, or an occurrence that would make you feel really great. See what you would see, hear what you would hear and feel what you would feel. Now increase the intensity of what you would see, hear, and feel. Allow yourself to access these feelings when you do acts of kindness. If you aren’t able to do this at first, keep trying. Your persistence will eventually enable you to experience increased joy for doing acts of kindness.

I once met a person who seemed extremely happy every time he did an act of kindness.

"Did your joy for doing kindness come naturally to you?" I asked him.

"Definitely not," he replied. "If my joy came naturally I don’t think it would be as strong as it is now. I have to admit that I really am selfish and I had to make a concerted effort to create a joyous attitude. What worked for me was the thought, ‘If I just won a major international lottery how would I react?’ I would celebrate with my entire being and would be extremely excited and euphoric. I vividly paint a mental picture of my hearing the great news. Then I think of how the value of kindness is even greater than winning a lottery. This intense joy becomes associated in my mind with doing kindness. Now my joy is automatic and I don’t need to do anything special to create it."

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