Do Right #18: Offer Help, Before Someone Needs It

These days it seems like such a rare thing to see someone going out of their way for another person. You see someone struggling to get a grocery cart over the curb at the grocery store and watch countless people walk not interested in taking a moment for someone else. You see an old person trying to get across a street before a light changes while people hurry ahead of them. You see a mother trying to juggle a stroller, a crying baby, opening a door and a cup of coffee and no one offers to take a second and help her. What if all of us tried to help someone everyday who didn't ask for help, but would sure appreciate a little? Tomorrow, let's all think ahead. What can we do to help someone else in need? Nothing big, something small. One thing. Open a door, pick up keys someone dropped, reach something off a shelf for someone at the grocery store, carry something for someone. Small things lead to big things! That is what this blog is all about!

Be Right #8: Create Community

I have been thinking a lot lately about how isolated we have become with modern technology. We are often alone, but feel like we are with others because we talk to them on Facebook or by e-mail or by text message. We often don't even know our neighbors or people in our community, you could even be corresponding with someone on a forum who is your neighbor and not even know it! So this story made me so happy when I found it. A small gesture that is keeping alive the spirit of not only libraries, but of an honor system and a community for people with a shared loved for books.

http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/10/10634425-using-books-to-build-community

Do Right #17: Be Neighborly

I have lived in many places and in some homes, I have known many of my neighbors and in others, I have known none. I notice during bad weather oftentimes this is when neighbors really become "neighborly". During the recent snowstorm, I noticed people out talking to each other more than usual. Helping each other shovel, push cars, discussing the iciness of driveways and the drive time on the roads. I was out shoveling my own driveway, when a neighbor I don't know well marched over and helped me clean off my snow covered car. I was so grateful and touched by him reaching out without saying a word.

I also remember living in another neighborhood, where our block was without electricity for days on end while our neighbors across the streets on all sides never lost electricity. We never heard from a single person. It was an incredibly cold winter and I would have paid anything for a place to warm up, a warm meal or a place to dry my hair. I vowed to never let something like that happen to one my neighbors.

So why do we wait for snowstorms, power outages, missing pets or tragedies to happen before we reach out to our neighbors? Wouldn't it be great to have a neighborhood, where everyone kept an eye out for each other and helped each other whenever possible? Maybe today is the day to introduce yourself!

Do Right #16: Don't be size-ist update

Just hours after writing my post I came across this ad on Facebook about childhood obesity. It makes me wonder if they would ever make a poster like this of boys? What a terrible message for any little girl to have to see. It infuriates me.

Do Right #16: Don't be size-ist.

People come in all shapes and sizes. I am increasingly frustrated by the number of people who discuss the size of other people, primarily overweight people, in public or in front of their friends, their family or worse their children. Someone's size does not dictate what kind of person they are, their value is not lowered because they are overweight.

I was really impressed to hear Sarah Jessica Parker telling a reporter the word "fat" was not allowed in their home when referring to other people. I hope more families will take this stand against judging other people. Most of us would proudly say we are not racist, but judging people by their sex, their religion or their size, they are wrong to the same degree.

Be Right #7: Secret Santa

What makes you feel better than doing something kind for a stranger during the holidays? Here is a great story! I only wish the news had more positive stories like this. They happen every day, but we so rarely get to hear about them.

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Be Right #6: The Birthday

This week is my birthday and today, I was lucky enough to go out for a pedicure, manicure and lunch with my friend, Maria. We were seated next to an older woman who was reading a book and quietly eating her lunch. We overheard the waitress ask the woman if she would like dessert. The woman replied that she would have a piece of cake since today was her birthday. The waitress brought her over a slice of cake with a candle on top. We wished her a happy birthday and she made a wish and blew out her candle.

It made me so completely sad to see this woman in a restaurant blowing out a candle on her slice of birthday cake alone. I felt helpless, like I needed to try and do something for this woman I didn't even know. I went to our waitress and asked if she could please put the woman's lunch on my bill. When she finished her meal, the waitress told her someone in the restaurant had paid her bill. The woman asked if it was us, we told her it was and we hoped she had a wonderful birthday. She thanked us and said she had received birthday money from her 93 year old father and had planned to use it to pay for her lunch. We told her maybe she could go out and treat herself to something else special.

I haven't stopped thinking about this woman all day, thinking how lucky I was to have so many wonderful friends & family in my life. Thinking I would probably never be reading a book and eating cake alone in a restaurant on my birthday and how grateful I was for that. I was happy to be able to do something for her, even though it was small. I hoped that somehow it made her feel a little bit special and made her day a little bit brighter. She certainly made me reflect on my own birthday this week and will make me a little more grateful every year.