By Lori Lewis, executive director
Common Grounds Cazenovia
A few months ago, I was at the gym and plugged my headphones into the TV. An interview came on and a young man named Sebastian Terry, was talking about his grief over the death of his 24-year-old friend. Terry said he wondered if his friend were alive again, if he would have wanted to live differently. He decided his friend wouldn’t have changed a thing, because he lived his life fully — which made Terry realize he wasn’t living his life to his full potential. So Terry sat down and wrote a list of 100 things he wanted to do during his life.
And then he began doing the things on the list.
He did a variety of fun things, like “Marry a Stranger in Vegas,” “Be in a Dance Video Clip” and “Whale Shark Swim,” and then he realized there was one thing on the list that was most important, and when he finally was able to cross it off, it made him finally feel fulfilled.
That one thing was “Help a Stranger.”
After listening to this interview, I began to think about how much I actually do (or don’t do) for others; I also became cognizant of others in the community who similarly want to spread the idea of kindness. So I decided to create business cards for Common Grounds to distribute that challenge Cazenovians to spread kindness throughout their community and their lives and “Pay it Forward.”
How it works is that you pick up a card, do something nice for someone else and then give him/her the card. They will then have the opportunity to do the same for someone else and hopefully soon the entire community will be passing cards and finding new ways to be helpful and kind to the people they come in contact with on a daily basis.
I struggled with the idea of the cards because I’ve always thought that if you do something kind for someone else and tell someone about it, it takes away from doing that kind act. When I tell someone else what I have done, that is for me, to make me feel better about myself; but if I don’t tell anyone then it is truly an act of kindness. After thinking about it for a few days, I realized that an act of kindness is a benefit to the giver and receiver no matter what, and that the card would hopefully propel the one act of kindness into another.
So here we go. Please join us in the Cazenovia Pay it Forward Challenge. Let’s spread kindness and joy throughout our community and in some small way see if we can’t have an impact on each other’s lives. Cards are available at Common Grounds and the Cazenovia Public Library or by emailing [email protected].
If you want to learn more about Sebastian Terry and read his “100 Things List,” visit his website at 100things.com.au.
