I finished the 29 days of giving challenge back on November 1 and I promised that I’d right a recap about whether or not I felt it had changed my life. I’ve been pondering that question for over a month mainly because every time I thought about it, I reached the conclusion that it hadn’t changed my life and that I really didn’t see what all the hoopla was about. I kept telling myself that that must be wrong because everyone was excited about this and the author got a book published and everything so there must be something to it. However, no matter how many times I turned the question around in my head, I still reached the conclusion that the 29 days of giving had had at best a minimal impact on my life.
The big question was why did I feel it had a minimal impact on my life and that’s the question I’ve really been pondering over a month. I guess the real reason I felt it had minimal impact was because all of the things on the list are things that I would have done anyway. I always try to make the world a little bit better and to do nice things for those around me. The 29 Day challenge didn’t make me give my daughter money for homecoming, I would have done that anyway. Taking the dog for a walk had more to do with my desire for fitness than anything else and I always let someone go in front of me in line if I the person only has one or two items and I have a handful.
The next question was did my consciously noticing and recording the things I’d given and sharing them with the 29 days community make a change in my life and if anything I think that had a negative impact on my life because I felt like I was bragging about doing the right thing. I didn’t need praise or recognition for the gifts and kindness I was sharing because I knew in my heart I’d done the right thing and that meant more than sharing them on a list with others.
As I was trolling through the Internet to get ideas for how to sum this up, I came across several random acts of kindness sites where people recount how kindnesses done by loved ones or strangers have changed their lives. To me it was much more meaningful to read stories from people who recognized the gifts given to them and how those gifts changed their lives.
My life has changed tremendously since I’ve started this blog as I’m consciously looking for the good things in life and recognizing those has led me to a more consistent state of bliss. Life still isn’t perfect, but recognizing the gifts of bliss in my life seems to in a weird sort of way lead to more gifts of bliss in my life.
Cairn by Cairn 