Random Act of Kindness

Did I say I was giving up vanity? Well, I wasn't meaning for EVER, naturally. My vanity isn't just skin deep, it's been around for as long as I can remember, and takes on many forms. Like, for example, checking this blogs stats at regular intervals. 

Cut me some slack - I have aspirations to be a writer, and one needs to know that one is being read! 

I am gratified by the response, and appreciative of my audience, and would thank you all profusely, if that wasn't somehow ... Weird? Ah! But look! I lay claim to weirdness in my profile, and come to think of it, immodesty too ... So ...

I learned today through a forensic analysis of my stats, that someone googling Richard Rohr, had stumbled on one of my posts, 'Spacious Soul' and read it - or anyway OPENED it, which counts. 

At the end of my plug for RR's book, 'Immortal Diamond' I'd added a non-sequetor, a postscript to my regular grumbles about my inability to get a bed for Bob. Bob died of an overdose, I wrote, sleeping on a child's bed, all alone, in July, 2013, to be found days later in not a very good condition. 

I read this post with shock. Although I still meet, and chat with, Bob's brother, Steve, who also has Huntington's disease, I had put Bob completely out of my mind. This is what we do, I tell myself, this is how we cope. 

Something moved in me though, something changed. When Brian needed his driving license updated,  

I put my hand in my pocket and I shelled out the £25, and now have the  satisfaction of seeing Brian in full-time employment as a result. I wasn't thinking about Bob, or his bed, but I was thinking of the months of endless hassle trying the roundabout way of do-gooding, and took a short-cut. 

So I pan-handle money from nice middle-class people like me, usually in return for fixing  their emails 

or installing a piece of software and saying, "I don't need the money, but if you want ro make a donation for one of the poor sods I meet on the streets, I'll pass it on. " People are generous, and someone down the line gets a bit of help. 

"Random Acts of Kindness" it's called on my Resilience Programme, and boy, does it feel good! So don't turn your nose up at me for trying to make out I'm Mother Teresa, try a Random Act of Kindness, and if it doesn't come back and bite you in the bum ( which is always a risk) see how good it makes YOU feel!