Long, long ago, I listed one of my blissmakers as helping other people and easing their burden. It’s one of hte blissmakers that’s lingered the longest without being written about, mainly because I was waiting for a big, showy, look at me gesture to convince all of you how wonderful I was about easing someone else’s burden. The gesture had to be perfect, it had to be about someone else, but still make me look good.
Everytime, I’d review my blissmakers with the goal being to write about one of them and close it out, that one kept jumping out at me and taunting me as if to say, that I’d never do something that would satisfy my strict criteria. I’ve been thinking about that one a lot lately, especially since I discovered the 29gifts.org site which challanges us to give every day for 29 days. Now typically, when Americans think of giving, they think like I do about the big showy gestures. But giving doesn’t have to be big showy gestures, it should come from the heart and it can be as simple as a smile, a kind word, or a compliment. So with that in mind, I’ve joined the 29 day challange and to get started, I’d like to share with you some of the ways that I’ve helped ease people’s burden over the last few months. The point of this is not to convince you all that I’m a saint, but to help you realize that every little bit counts:
- I dropped everything to go out and help my mom when she needed me. It wasn’t an emergency, but she needed my brother to sign some paperwork so we both went out on a Saturday at the last minute.
- I helped a coworker track down a contact in another division. It would have been easy to just say, “Sorry, not my problem.” But helping him out was the right thing to do.
I’ve taken my daughter to tanning more than once on days when I’d just as soon crawl into bed and sleep the day away.- I’ve donated a typewriter and clothes to our local Goodwill. This benefits both the person who buys the stuff at a discount and Goodwill as they profit from my donations.
- I’ve given my husband a back rub to ease his aching back.
None of these are grand and magnificant gestures, but they were all given from the heart with no expectation of repayment and they were all done because they were the right thing to do and that in itself is a pretty blissful thing.
Cairn by Cairn 