Pay it Forward

Before I even begin, let me state for the record that This jem is not mine. I subscribe to this newsletter, Atlanta Lowdown, which will eventually also be found here and one of their writers, Kinetic wrote this, and it touched my heart. Haven't seen the movie, but the idea is moving, IMHO. If you're also feeling it - let Kinetic know. Here are Kinetic's thoughts (with his permission) about Paying it Forward this holiday season:

Pay it Forward

Back in 2000, a relatively obscure movie, featuring Haley Joel Osment (that creepy kid in “The Sixth Sense”), Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt in a bad wig came out. It was called “Pay It Forward.” I, along with most of America saw fit to wait to see this gem when I was trapped on a plane to some erstwhile destination. The thing is, the movie was really good – from the acting, to the concept developed in the plot. The principle idea of the movie being that people do something completely and utterly selfless for a complete stranger, with the only requirement of the beneficiary, being that they pass on some goodwill and/or good fortune to another complete stranger. The great part was that the nature of the act made it contagious. I think about this because of the holiday season.

Enough has been written about Christmas, (C)Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and even Festivus (for all you Seinfeld fans) about materialism and missing the true spirit of the season, so I won’t bore you, LD Fam with that kind of talk. This weekend, I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Bertice Berry speak about not only forgiving those that may have wronged you, but also going one step further and even blessing them in deed. Now, the dark side of Kinetic does make it quite hard to turn any cheek for the good of my soul or man, but somehow (maybe the season), the words resonated a little more this time. Taking it beyond that, I thought why not use the season to “pay it forward”, what ever “it” was. This includes the person that held the door for you, Jesus being born to give his life for you, or the bartender recognizing you without having to have your head on fire.

During this time of year, it’s easy to display generosity, primarily because you are doing it for the people you know, the liquor that got dropped in the egg nog (heads up to the Hennessey/Martel Fam reading this) and the fact that you have some pretty good idea that reciprocity is just a tree away. You even can work hard to find that perfect gift for a loved one, based on some obscure comment they’ve made or thing you know about them. My challenge to you is to figure out how to do something selfless on a much bigger scale than dropping dimes to the Salvation Army people, wherever they are allowed to stand this year. This is beyond the Hosea Help the Homeless, even though time spent there is worth your weight in platinum. Here is the level by which you can do this: think of doing something for yourself. Whatever that is, whether buying some really nice thing, spending private time – whatever – then, try to actually do something on that level for a complete stranger.

And once you do it – and this is key – keep it to yourself. The level of satisfaction that you’ll get from an unsolicited, undocumented act of confidence is enough to fuel all the homes in the SWATs for the Christmas season. We’ll all know when this kind of generosity, particularly in our community, becomes commonplace.

ok, now all of y'all go out & pay something. I'm out - I need to go get my true Holiday spirit out of layaway myself ;-)