257-A Perfect Example Of The Ripple Effect Of Kindness

This inspiring story is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to creating a ripple effect of kindness. 

 

Transcript:

 

Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in 2 minutes a day,  through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life. 

 

I'm your host Katie Jefcoat and today I was reading my happiness lesson in the course by The Happiness Research Institute and the professor wrote a story that so brilliantly describes how contagious happiness really is.  And there are a million stories like this one.  

 

He said “Two firefighters were standing in the middle of a long line at a fast food restaurant.

Before they could reach the front of the queue, the siren on the firetruck went off and they had to leave, hungry. Seeing this, a couple who had just received their meals gave them to the firefighters and got back in the queue to order. When they finally reached the front of the line, the manager paid for their meals.” 

 

Maybe you are kind to someone and karma doesn’t come back to you that quickly, you will still get the emotional happiness boost of being kind.  

 

Kindness is not only a virtue that’s easy to practise, it genuinely makes the giver happier than the receiver.

 

This is a real life example, but I wonder how this would play out in social media if we thought the person on the other side of the screen was looking right at us?  

 

We are social beings, we know this.  We care about what other people do, what other people think of us and how we are doing compared to everyone else.  

 

But what if we set an example of being kind.  And what if that ripple effect started to take hold and diminish some of the toxicity in favor of a more kind social media? 

 

We care about what other people think, generally.  This is why people care about relative income and not absolute income.  We’ve talked about this. 

 

People look at how their peers are doing, so we can see why social media would have a negative effect on how people feel about their lives. But what if we flipped the switch. 

 

Social comparisons are a pattern in happiness and it’s heightened on social media. 

 

I’m excited to be more overtly kind on social media and to highlight more kindness on social media and I invite you to do the same, maybe, you and I can start a ripple effect that goes way beyond us.  If nothing else, it will boost our happiness and the happiness of the people we are kind to. 

 

 

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