When I was a child, surrounded by the schizophrenics that made up my family, I read this book that was totally foreign to me. I don't know where the book came from. I will tell you my crazy mother thought it was 'stupid' and threw it out. In the book, I saw a way of living that made perfect sense to me.
A woman made a pie and gave it to a man. When he tried to repay her, she said, "Just do something nice for someone else."
Throughout the children's book, we watch one person after another doing small kindnesses for each other until at the very end of the book, someone brings the woman a pie. In the middle of the chaos and insanity that was my life, this idea - give a kindness, request other people give to others, and eventually you will get it back - made great sense to me.
What I didn't know is that doing an act of kindness feels good. By doing kind things for other beings, you get to live in the wonderful feeling of kind giving. And that's a pretty great place to live.
This video is a great example of exactly what I am talking about:
I never found the book nor do I know who wrote it. It was a small act of kindness that was given to me. I try to repay it through the conversation about kindness here on the blog.
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