Pay It Forward No.2

Nothing fancy, again. I'm too strapped for money myself at the moment. But I bought a co-worker a candy bar, she's been having a rough week. I had a hard time being secret about it, waiting until she was gone from her desk to put the candy on her desk. I did leave a Pay It Forward card with it, but I felt kind of silly doing that, since it was such a small kindness.

I also just bought a book -- Acts of Kindness: How to Make a Gentle Difference -- and it has a lot of great ideas for random acts of kindness. The first chapter discusses anonymous, unconditional giving; Giving a gift, big or small, without knowing who the receiver is and without the receiver knowing who you are, just because it is right to give. This thought has been rolling around in my mind a lot. It seems to me, by leaving a Pay It Forward card with the random acts of kindness, the gift is no longer unconditional. I'm not sure what to do with this realization. Unconditional anonymous giving is not the be all and end all of the world, and does not negate other types of giving (ie Pay It Forward). But perhaps in the case of the candy bar, an anonymous unconditional gift would have been more giving. Perhaps I should save my Pay It Forward cards for bigger things.