The Season of Deliberate Acts of Kindness

Welcome to our favorite time of year: The 2012 Season of Deliberate Acts of Kindness.

What, you haven't heard of The Season of Deliberate Acts of Kindness (or, for us professionals, simply The Season)? Say it ain't so! How could this possibly be? Have you been living under a rock for the last six months? Been floating aimlessly on a raft in the middle of the ocean with no WiFi? (Horrors!)  Marathoning The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Weeds? Avoiding all opportunities to hear news of the world? (If so, you've missed a ton.) Been in a coma?

Regardless, you clearly missed the declaration that The Season of Deliberate Acts of Kindness began this year on April 22 at your sunrise. Which means, of course, that The Season has begun. Welcome!

What is The Season of Deliberate Acts of Kindness you ask? Our initial response: Must we explain everything? Our secondary response:  Best to go slow with certain people.

The Season is that time of the year when we are called upon to seek opportunities to demonstrate friendliness and generosity. Key concepts of The Season include:

1. Finding opportunities to be friendly, generous and/or considerate
2. Demonstrating friendliness, generosity and/or consideration for others, and
3. Repeating steps 1 and 2 until the end of The Season.  And beyond, if you're truly cool.

The list of possible deliberate acts of kindness is endless. But since it's The Season, and we're in a helping mood, let us provide 20 useful ideas if only to stir your creative juices:

• Holding doors for others (heard this from us before?)
• Helping those less mobile cross the street
• Thanking those who work with or for you for all they do
• Reconnecting with a long-lost friend
• Donating to a charity, any charity
• Slowing down to allow someone to merge into traffic (If you're the recipient, remember to wave!)

• Sending flowers to your mother (she'll love it)
• Sending flowers to your father (he'll dig it)
• Calling a member of your extended family just to say 'hi' (Call us old school -- we know you will -- but texting does NOT qualify here as an act of kindness!)
• Giving your car and the Earth a break by taking public transportation or riding a bike a day or two each week
• Planting anything
• Bringing coffee or tea to a stressed co-worker or, yes, even your boss
• Being polite to telemarketers (They're people too. Really, they are.)
• Greeting people with a hug
• Giving a buck to that guy you avoid eye contact with every day on the street
• Calling or hugging your kid(s), just because
• Joining a museum
• Volunteering, even if only for an hour
• Calling to offer support, even if only emotional, to that friend who you know needs help
• Being polite to fans of opposing sports teams (Like telemarketers, they, too, are people.)

That's just 20 possibilities. Add your own flair, your own creativity. Find ways to help and support others, to make people around you feel better, to honor the contributions of those with whom you work, to add a bit more joy to the lives of friends, family and, given the season, strangers. Find ways to relieve the burden on the environment. Provide assistance -- time and/or money -- to organizations striving to feed, educate or inspire others. Be genuinely polite, even warm and appreciative, to those who have impossible jobs.

The season of Deliberate Acts of Kindness has begun! Start today to spread happiness with verve, determination, and passion. Remember, with any luck what goes around will come around.

One last and important point:  No end date for The Season 2012 has yet been set.  With any luck, it will continue straight through to the beginning of The Season 2013.  With any luck, that is.