Performed a good deed? Received a compliment? Gave one or performed one yourself? Lets hear it... (house)

[Russ_Shawna]

Just wondering. In the process of buying my home in SA and getting ready to move over with my family of 5.7 (including me and babyinabelly) and this is my feeble attempt at promoting goodwill before I get there We hear so many things a day that are negative that maybe hearing about someone else's positive event might make us feel a little better. The way I see it, if just 1 more person out of every 10000 goes out of their way to do something nice (or not to do something mean) the world would be a better place. I know its hard to bite your tongue sometimes, I know its hard to find the time to hold that door the extra second it takes for someone to walk in, I know its hard to give that seat up to someone else who could probably use it more, I know its hard to let the other car in front of you, or not cuss out the person who wouldn't let you in when it was either that or you slam into a divider, I know its hard to not judge a person by just the way they look, but HEY!, why not try just one more time? never know, but you might feel good about it, or dare I say it? Yes I do, you might evedn get a Thank You and a smile...

What can I say, hope springs eternal and sometimes it takes only one stone to make the pond overflow.

To start it off:

Someone told me today that my new baby is gonna be lucky to have a Mom and Dad like my wife and I. When one of our kids overhead that, a teenager no less, she said "no duh!" What greater compliment can you get? Might not be an actual deed but made me feel great.

Earlier this week, my daughter's HS principal called me about an issue that I had CCed her in an email on. I never expected her to reply, just wanted to vent. Not only did she reply but she got the problem resolved when the company *name withheld but they handle lunch money* replied with a "it isnt our problem"

Last week I knowingly covered for a colleague who would have gotten in a world of trouble for something, umm, "absentminded" he did that caused a couple of servers to lock up. Didn't make me look good since I couldn't "find the issue" when I fixed things up but he's new in the job and couldn't afford the bad mark a few days into his position.

The Russ half of Russ_Shawna (this way all the naysayers know who to throw the stones at )

[ShaneSA]

I've been doing a thing called "pay it forward" for a few years. Every time I help or try to help someone with a problem, ie: broken down, lost, help a neighbor with a job, and they try to pay me, I just say no...you owe the next guy you run against who needs help.
I don't know if it works but maybe people will pick up on it eventually and there will be lots of people around looking to pay back.

[PopsGuysRule]

Originally Posted by ShaneSA

I've been doing a thing called "pay it forward" for a few years. Every time I help or try to help someone with a problem, ie: broken down, lost, help a neighbor with a job, and they try to pay me, I just say no...you owe the next guy you run against who needs help.
I don't know if it works but maybe people will pick up on it eventually and there will be lots of people around looking to pay back.

Oh, Shane, you reminded me of somethiing, an event I will always cherish, but that happened a long, long time ago.... No one else may be very impressed, but I was very affected by this ....

Years ago, I dated a guy, we'll call him "Tom". Tom was really really sweet, and VERY bright, and most often a lot of fun. But, as with many very very bright people, he was very absent minded, often kinda left in the lurch with poor planning and/or ignorance of facts...

We went to his father's house on Christmas Eve. On the way home, Tom got a flat tire, and had no spare. It was nearly midnight, and we were stranded out on a deserted freeway, I had about $8 in my purse, and Tom had $2 (in change! LOL).

Well, a car pulled over, a young hispanic couple and their tiny sweet infant. The mother held the baby in her arms, and again, here I am giving my age away - this was stil legal at that time; there were no mandatory laws about children and infants in cars yet....

The couple knew of a gas station that was open 24/7 including holidays and the young man took "Tom's" bad tire off and put it in his trunk. ("Tom" didn't even have a lug wrench.) The couple paid for a new tire and the young man put the tire on our car.

We asked numerous times for his name and address so that we could send him money, reimbursing him for the tire. He consistently refused and would not even give us his name. Here is what he said:
"You will repay me when you take the opportunity to do this for someone else someday."

Well, fast forward about six years. I am now involved in a group that is based on spiritual principles and my favorite time to meet with them is at a Sunday morning meeting. I have not heard or thought of "Tom" for probably 2-3 years. While I'm getting ready for my meeting, my phone rings and it's "Tom" and he wants to come over. I tell him, okay, but I'm going to a meeting and then to breakfast with friends; you can come if you want but that's my plan."
He comes; we go to the meeting, but "Tom" decides to pass on breakfast, so I'm heading back to my house to drop him off so he can leave. We see a carload full of white-haired ladies, appearing to be heading home from church, stopped in the middle of the road, abuot 10 yards back from the intersection.
Tom and I stop and ask what the problem is. They don't know; there's plenty of gas, but the engine just died and they coasted to a stop. We pushed the car over into a small parking lot of an elementary school and the driver gave us the phone number of her son. We went back to my house and called him; he was very grateful to us and made this random comment: "If you had called ten seconds later, you wouldn't have caught me; I had just turned the key to lock the door and we were leaving for the day, but I decided to come back in and answer the phone."

I said to "Tom", "Do you remember that night you had a flat and we couldn't repay that guy? This is it."
Tom went on his way, I went to breakfast, I never heard from him again, ever.
But I love to recall this story: I felt like I had just been literally, physically touched by God, like he just reached down, picked the two of us up and put us together one last time, so we could repay that kind hearted Hispanic couple in southern California......

Sorry for such a long story... it's just that I love this one so much.....

[sapphire]

PGR, I think you were! There is no such thing as "coincidence", right? That was a great story!

[ShaneSA]

IT WORKS!!!!!! Glad to hear that someone else has the "pay it forward" bug. Maybe other people will read it and the concept will catch on. The angels are watching. Thanks for a great story.

[Squidlo]

Ive done it for years. When people try to pay for random kindness I tell them " do something nice for someone else". I always felt weird taking money for doing what people should do all along.



Squidlo