No. 18 -- Do a random act of kindess each month

Why it's on the list: Because I suck at this. I swear I'm a nice person, although I'm sure there are people who would dispute that. I can be opinioated and blunt and strong-willed. But deep down, I really am nice. But I don't let that side of myself out to play as often as I should, especially when it comes to total strangers. I have participated in a random act of kindess event, and what I did was buy a chocolate bar and give it to a pair of strangers. It was shocking to me how nervous that made me. Why is it so hard? Hopefully after this year, it won't be.

How I'll do it: Well, I think first of all, scheduling it will help. (It all comes back to the pesky calendar!) I think it might be good to have a certain day of each month in mind as my random act of kindness day. So I hereby declare the.... 25TH of each month to be my personal random act of kindness day. To help in the idea department, I've been doing a little online research.

There's a foundation out of Denver called Acts of Kindness. They have a newsletter and a Twitter feed. There are a few lists online from other bloggers who apparently have more ideas than I do. There's even a random act of kindness map, which I'm kind of baffled by.

More than anything, I'm going to try to be a little more aware. Aware of the nice gestures I see others making. Aware that there are people around me who could use encouragement. I think too often I walk around quite lost in my own head. In order for this to happen, I need to begin to gaze outward a little more.

Here's a cool thing about this! If you live in the Metro Detroit area and want to suggest someone who could use an act of kindness, please leave me a comment! Or send me an email at 20littlethings@gmail.com. This will make it a little less "random," but I think that's OK.