Video Pick: Simple Community Ideas

A colleague recently shared with me her favourite TED videos and I have just finished watching them all.  The following 2 stuck out for me as they are awesome examples of the power of community, simple ideas and people's willingness to be part of something and share themselves.

I love Candy's and Frank's ideas.  Candy finds ways for neighbours to share information and ideas in public places and Frank collects secrets.

Time to find me a postcard and get involved!

A Small Act of Kindness

I was just waiting at the front of a queue at a taxi rank when a woman joined the queue behind me using walking sticks.  Within a couple of minutes a taxi turned up and I offered her to go ahead of me and take the cab.  This cost me very little, in fact within barely a minute another taxi turned up, but the lady on accepting the queue jump was so grateful to me, she was noticeably touched by my very small act of kindness.

As a result, I felt fantastic.

I share this story because it made me think of my "100 happy days" blog (A challenge to take a photo a day for 100 days of something that makes you happy).  Maybe another option, instead of / as well as / after is to do 100 Small Acts of Kindness.

A small act of kindness need cost you nothing, or at least very little, but you stand to gain a lot.  I think this will have a similar sort of positive impact on your life as the happiness challenge and has the added benefit of making other peoples' day at the same time.

It is certainly true that small things like these can certainly make my day.  For example, the other day the lady in the coffee shop offered me a coffee on the house - this made me smile all morning, not because I had a free coffee, because in actual fact I don't drink coffee so declined, simply because of her kindness towards me.

Something else to try!

100 Happy Days

Check out this initiative:

                                       100 Happy Days

Basically, the idea is to take a photo of something that makes you happy every day.

It is widely acknowledged that appreciating what you have is one of the key factors in being happy, and what better way to start encouraging yourself to look out for the good things in your life than this!  

People who have done the challenge have noticed that they find they are in a better mood everyday, start noticing the things that make them happy and receive more compliments for the people around them!!

I am certainly going to give it a shot :)