Ever have a day or week when things go inexplicably wrong? You stub your toe, spill your coffee, clients cancel, kids disappoint, a friend forgets to call you, you get rear-ended at a traffic light, and so on... I have to admit that since I began my career as a massage therapist, I can count such days on one hand. They just don’t happen all that much.
My explanation is this: when your thoughts and actions are positive and helpful, good things happen right back to you. In college I learned that "for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction". But with positive thoughts and actions, the opposite is true; you get more of what you gave out. While some might wave their fists at the sky and curse the gods when things go wrong, I attribute - almost thankfully - these "bad" days to not having sent out enough positive energy through my random acts of kindness.
The thing is I feel that my work as a massage therapist is comprised entirely of random acts of kindness. Someone who woke up with an achy neck sees me for a massage. An hour later, they’ve come to the realization that they’re not breathing correctly and they've been keeping their shoulders glued to their ears. And the neck pain is gone too! Sometimes, the client’s experience is even more profound and emotional.
Does your work feel like a series of random acts of kindness? When it does, the universe pays you, not with a check, but with a radiant, protective light like a force-field that guards you from those slings and arrows. There’s a wonderful movie, "Pay it forward", that illustrates this concept beautifully. A young boy decides to initiate a campaign to "pay forward" random acts of kindness. His simple plan creates a ripple effect that transforms his community. Not convinced? Try it yourself. Here’s a week-long experiment:
Try this with someone new every day, for seven days.
I’m not saying that we should all become massage therapists, though it is an outstanding way to interlace random acts of kindness into your work! What I mean is that seeing your job or better yet, your purpose in life as a series of random acts of kindness (even if you write parking tickets for a living!) might just keep your days positive, joyful, and accident-free! Isn’t that a day worth living?