In this episode, we discuss how we shouldn’t keep score for our acts of kindness because there might come a day where we won’t be able to give them anymore.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about how we shouldn’t keep score for our acts of kindness because there might come a day where we won’t be able to give them anymore. I’m a big believer that I’m lucky to be born on this planet even with a global pandemic going on. The world has given me a lot of joy and I feel that I need to give back more than I have received. I also know that not everyone is starting at the same place in life and not everyone has the same resources, but we all have a way to give kindness to the world.
Kindness can be a simple as giving someone a phone call and checking in on them. It can be writing a comment on a post that says thanks for sharing the content. It can be opening the door for someone when their hands are full. It can be driving an hour to help them out since their car broke down and need a ride. And we do all these things, we shouldn’t keep score because we should have higher standards for ourselves and be forgiving of others. People just don’t know and they need to be instructed on how to do better. And seeing the example holding the high standard will make someone feel like they should do more. If not, then you tell them or you find a way to remove that person from your life because some people are just takers.
Either way, don’t allow a taker to lower your standard of being kind. If we stop being kind, there might be a day where we can’t be kind anymore. Like the Kanye West lyric, “If you admire somebody, you should go ahead and tell them. People never get the flowers while they can still smell them.” To me, this is a shame and we should put more goodness out into the world because there might be a day where we can’t do that act of kindness to that person that we admire or we might not be capable of doing so anymore.
Life can come at us fast, and change the whole situation real fast. There can be a death, a medical condition, a freak accident, or some global issue that changes the situation where we can’t do the acts of kindness like we wanted to. Intentions mean nothing. It’s the action that really counts. Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t spend all our time doing acts of kindness. I’m a big believer in doing five-minute favors and allowing the other person to do the work or to give a quick pick me up. Sending someone a compliment or picking up the tab for a group of friends is a good way to show an act of kindness. Just make sure it’s not overextending yourself or putting yourself in a hole that you have to start digging yourself out of.
Five-minute favors can show that you care and you actually are helping someone out. If you want to do something bigger, then that’s fine, but don’t expect anything back. Nothing is worst than keeping score because it will cause us to become bitter when we don’t receive something back. If no one sends you back handwritten cards or remembers your birthday, don’t take it personally. Just keep giving out to the world to the best of your ability. If more people did this, then the world would be a better place to live in. When people feel entitled to things, then it causes a lot of negative things, and it’s best to move on and just take the loss. Now you know who to deal with and not to deal with. Who are the ride or dies. But if someone is really struggling, then still help out that person who is just a taker, because they don’t know better, but don’t take over their problems. Just help them get back up and if they don’t want to get back up, at least you put in the effort. We don’t know what people are dealing with and they just might need that help to get started. If it’s a family member or friend, you don’t know when is the last time you can help them out. Life has given us so much good stuff, along with some bad stuff, but we shouldn’t let the bad stuff cloud our judgment and allow us not to be the upright citizens that the world needs.
And that’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, you cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late as Ralph Emerson Waldo said. I read a lot and it’s crazy to know that the same problems with people two hundred years ago are the same type of problems that people face today. People still hold grudges and feel entitled to stuff because they think it’s fair. The world is what it is and we can either have the right perception about life or we can have a delusional one. Plus the world has a lot of problems in it and it doesn’t need more negativity in it. So do those acts of kindness to put more positive vibes out there and don’t keep them inside of you because you will never know if the next opportunity will come. Plus let the people in your life know that you appreciate them and get them the flowers so that they can actually smell them and enjoy them. Life is about the experience so the more positive experiences we can give people, the better is going to be.
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