Customer Reviews

Random Acts of Kindness

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In a world full of hate, violence, and selfishness, this book helps us remember each other in the best of ways. It helped found the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation and is responsible of Random Acts of Kindness week. The publishers at Conari Press have truly created a timeless work of inspiration and beauty. Go out and commit a random act of kindness yourself!

I listened to this book on tape on my morning walk. I've listened to it many times and it always starts my day off with a positive feeling. It inspired me to do kind things for people - like giving 10 hamburgers to a homeless man with my son. He told his class and many children went out that week and did more kind things so that they could share their kind acts with the class. It had a great ripple effect.

I found this book to be of good value. It helped me to remember my fellow man. It deals with all aspects of how our kindness effects not only others bur our own life. I have read this book more than a dozen times. I find it helps when iam depressed or sad.

In 1982, California peace activist Ann Herbert wrote on a placemat at a restuarant "Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty." A fellow diner was impressed by these words, and wrote them down. Gradually they spread and inspired conversation and thought. This international bestseller greatly accelerated the process. Today there is a World Kindness Movement and many organizations spreading the concept of kindness throughout our country.

Bestselling author Dapne Rose Kingma writes the forward, and there is an introduction by Dr. Dawna Markova. But about 63 others participated in stories and ideas for this book. It is a group project than transcends anyone author.

The concept of random of kindness is an antidote to the concept of random acts of violence. Random of kindess are far more common than random acts of violence, and the more they are encouraged, the more they should dominate.

Random acts of kindness can be both as simple as talking to strangers, as inconspicuous as allowing people in a hurry to get ahead of you in line, as generous as doing unsolicited chores for people in need, as philanthropic as paying for a stranger's dinner or sending books to a sick child.

Random acts of kindness can be as fulfilling as climbing a tree after a runaway child, and then leading the child down, or as planting a tree that others will enjoy decades letter. They can be forbearance in the case of a minor traffic accident or of a personal debt. They can be meaningful advice given, compassion and empathy shared. They can be tips given in appreciation of the server instead of the value of the service. They can be the willingness to let others act on misunderstandings despite some element of personal sacrifice by the actor.

The endless examples of the ways people can treat others with random kindness are well sampled in this book. So are inspirational quotes.

Pennsylvania founder William Penn says "If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do, let me do it now, and not dter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again." Martin Luther King describes the concept of agape as "understanding, create redemptive goodwill toward all men...and overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. When you rise to love on this level, you love all men not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, but you love them because God loves them."

The Dalai Lama says "My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness." Jesus says "If you bring forth what is inside of you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don't bring forth what is inside of you, what you don't bring forth will destroy you."

Herman Melville says "We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among these fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects." William James says "I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest moments of pride."

M.C. Richards says "Compassion is an alternate perception." Albert Einstein says "A human being is part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical illusion of conscioiusness. The illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature."

So having demonstrated the relevance and the vitality of the random acts of kindness philosophy to both everyday situations and to the thoughts of the world's greatest humanitarians, the authors praise part of the beauty of the concept of random acts of kindness as "the turnaround from the ugliest and most frightening of all phrases: random acts of violence....It's so easy to fear. It's so easy to create an almost palpable reality out of our imagined teerror. Random acts of kindness ring pure and true to that fear, as life-confirming revolutionary acts."

"Kindness," the authors say, "is soft and bubtle. It permeates everything it comes in contact with, remains as a permanent reminder of what could and should be."

At some level, this is a book of great idealism. At another level, it is a book of great pragmatism. A world of kind people is a world that values all people and gives all people the great gift of a friendly and supportive environment.

This reviewer can think of no one who would not beneift from reading this book. At a practical, everyday level it is an invaluable guide to building up communities of hope, trust, friendship, and love. It seeks not a Utopia on Earth, but communities around the globe worthy of the best aspirations of our most profound and visionary insprirational leaders and the day to day lives of our nicest and kindest people.

This is a great inspirational book that will give you practical ideas for how to spread kindness in the world. I picked this book up on a whim while browsing in the bookstore a few years ago, and I keep it at work to remind me of the need to do nice things just because you want the world to be better.

There are lots of books that talk about doing good from a selfish point of view, sometimes politely called "enlightened self-interest", but this is motivational book for people who want to be altruistic and intrinsically good. If you want to reach Maslow's fifth level, then this is a book for you.

Random Acts of Kindness got me thinking more deeply about my actions and how I influence young people. It inspired me to write a children's book, THE KING OF KINDNESS.

"Imagine what would happen if there were an outbreak of
kindness in the world," notes Daphne Rose Kingma in the foreword
to RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS by the editors of Conari
Press . . . you'd bring "delight and goodness
to yourself and others."

Methinks that could well be possible; i.e., if everybody took
the time to read this short but oh-so-powerful book . . . it is
packed with practical ideas that can be applied to work
situations, such as the following:

I had a client who owed me a good deal of money.
Eventually she stopped seeing me, but each month
I would send her a bill and receive no response.
Finally I wrote to her and said, "I don't know what
difficulty has befallen you that you are unable to pay
me, but whenever it is, I'm writing to tell you your debt
is forgiven in full. My only request is that at some point
in your life, when your circumstances have changed, you
will pass this favor on to someone else."

By the same token, there were perhaps an equal number
of things that could be utilized if you wanted to make
your home life more enjoyable, including this one:

There was a time in my life when everything was working
so smoothly, I found myself sitting at home one Saturday
with all my work done, all my household chores completed:
dishes washed, laundry folded and put away, house dusted,
grocery shopping completed, and that delicious feeling of
having nothing to do. Then I thought about a friend from
work who was a single mother of two small children and
never seemed to have the time for anything. I jumped into
my car, drove over to her house, walked in and said, "Put
me to work." At first she didn't really believe it, but we ended
up having a great time, cleaning like mad, taking time out to
feed and play with the kids, and then diving back into the
chores.

I also liked the quotes sprinkled throughout the book . . . what
caught my attention was the fact that many had not been
seen by me previously, including:

* Do every act of your life as if it were your last.--Marcus Aurelius;

* I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community,
and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever
I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the
harder I work, the more I live. Life is no "brief candle" to me.
It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a
moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible
before handing it on to future generations.--George Bernard Shaw; and

The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live.--Joan
Borysenko.

Lastly, I appreciated the thought-provoking suggestions presented
throughout RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS . . . among the ones
that caught my attention were these:

* As you go about your day, why not pick up the trash you find on
your sidewalk?

* Buy a big box of donuts or chocolates for the office next to yours
Or the kids who hang out on the street corner. Or the UPS person
or the mail carrier.

* If you have an infirmed person living near you, offer to do the grocery
shopping for him or her.

This book does not need a long review. It is simply about the very best of what human beings are capable of doing. Random Acts of Kindness is simply the most important book I have ever read. -- Sam Yulish, author of WHERE HAVE ALL THE HIPPIES GONE? and THE HESITANT PSYCHIC.

You know, it never hurts to be kind to your neighbor, friend, stranger, even a beggar on the street. Kindness paid is returned in kind. I believe that. Kindness is good and anybody who doesn't believe that has mush for brains. That said, this little book has a big heart. It's about as inspirational as they come, full of kindness quotations by such luminaries as Robert Browning, Thomas Hobbs, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jack London and many more. This wonderful little book sits on top of the paper of my in basket at work, handy, in case I think I'm about to blow my top. Sometimes you just have to reach outside of yourself to maintain your cool and don'tcha know, it's cool to be kind.

Indeed, we have all depended on the kindness of strangers. Wouldn't it be nice to pick up a book with easy, practical ways to help you pay all that kindness forward? Well, in Random Acts of Kindness, you've got enough strategies to last you a lifetime. Have you ever thought of popping in on a friend who is a single parent who simply never has enough time to do anything for him or herself and ask, "What do you need? I'm here to help; put me to work"? Well, I hadn't either until this book matter-of-factly illustrated what an incredible blessing such an act might be for a friend in need. This is just one of many simple, practical loving ways to perform random acts of kindness. You'll want to own this book and keep it close to you.