Kindness At 13,000 ft.

Mary Roberts, Successful Spaces, asked Carry Out Kindness to share her story about her trip to Machu Picchu. Here are Mary's words. "I received help from many people to successfully hike the Inca Trail in Peru in September, 2011. Our cook, Bernardo, prepared a sugar and flour free diet for me during the four-day climb. While my fellow trekkers had granola bars for a snack, I ate dried sweet potatoes. I was the only trekker who stayed healthy on the trail. My diet certainly contributed to my wellness.

Harry, our leader and guide, gave me pointers on the safest and most efficient way to hike the trail. I tended to walk on the right near the cliff camouflaged by vegetation. Every day Harry told me to move to the left. His act of kindness probably saved my life.

Our Adventures Within Reach porters carried our gear, pitched our tents and set out basins of warm water for washing every morning and evening. Here I am in a photo with Bernardo and two young porters who, after setting up our camp, came down the trail to carry our day packs along the final stretch. Their many acts of kindness helped me complete the 50 kilometer trail and reach Machu Picchu, our destination. Here I am with Bernardo and two young porters at our highest elevation of 13,680 feet. Carry Out Kindness in the Peruvian Andes!"

Eliminating unnecessary challenges for the travelers, the guides, cook and porters, generously shared their expertise with unwavering friendliness and diligence bringing Mary's trek to a successful and fulfilling completion. It shows that compassionate team work creates interconnectedness between cultures. These men are kind ambassadors for their country.

Five Star Kindness

Getting out of the car and onto the street is great way to discover what is happening in the neighborhood. We continue to be amazed at what we find. Kindness at work in Portland Oregon. Dry cleaners offer five star service to out of work individuals. Plaza Cleaners will dry clean your suit for free if you are have job interview. Five Star Cleaners offers inspiration to make your day a little brighter: Special! "Create Peace With An Inner Smile." 

What's in your neighborhood? 

One Million Acts of Kindness

Traveling the country in a wildly painted kindness bus, Bob Votruba and his Boston Terrier, Bogart, have taken to the road with the extraordinary goal of encouraging every person to perform One Million Acts of Kindness in their lifetime.

I met Bob at a Panera Bread in Vero Beach, Florida, with husband, Robbie, and our teens, Connor and Molly.  As I shared with him our Carry Out Kindness mission, Bob enthralled us with his One Million Acts of Kindness, and it wasn’t long before we created a lifelong mutual admiration society.

Bob and Bogart have just announced a twice cross-country bicycle tour from New York City to San Francisco and back again to New York City to raise awareness for a few victims of abuse and violence.   Bob says “this is happening much too often and needs to end. If every person were to embrace the lifetime goal of One Million Acts Of Kindness, abuse and violence would stop.”

You can visit Bob and Bogart to learn more about their journey and follow their bicycle/bus tour at: http://www.onemillionactsofkindness.com/

Face It, Kindness Grows Because Of YOU!

We want to spark more acts of Kindness in the new year. As it goes, the more everyone knows, the more Kindness flows around the world. Share CarryOutKindness with your FRIENDS. Just drop by Facebook and LIKE us with a click on or before 1-1-2011. Help us reach 500. Together WE're making a difference: committing one act, helping one person, sharing one BIG idea at a time.  

~The Kindness Crew

Remembering the Kindness of another

Can you recall a time in your life when someone did something kind for you? Something simple and beautiful? I can.

When I was about 12 years old, my family's home caught fire and was destroyed. Losing a home is a trauma that most of us will not have to endure. It is a strange and surreal event, particularly for a child. A child's home is a big part of their security and in just a few minutes ours had been reduced to a burned out shell. All of the things that I had held dear were ruined or gone, and walking through the rubble to identify that which was left was spooky beyond any Halloween haunted house.

I loved stuffed animals as a child and had quite a collection. Favorite cartoon characters, big ones won at the summer midway, and other assorted favorites. They were important to the childhood me, providing comfort and friendship which from my adult viewpoint is now difficult to describe. They were gone. All of them. I felt unsteady, afraid and saddened by our loss.

When these things happen in a community people often reach out to others with whatever support they can and a family friend reached out to me with a little stuffed frog. It was handmade and simple and it offered comfort in a way that made me feel that everything was going to be alright.

It was beautiful to me. While the event was big, the frog itself was very small, and very loved.

Kindness can come in a very small package and still have an incredible impact on another. The Carry out Kindness stickers are having that kind of impact. We are hearing stories of fun ways that people are using them to remind themselves and others to be kind and ways that opportunities are opening up for the people with the courage to share them. We are halfway to our goal of seeing 100,000 stickers go across the world, encouraging a million acts of kindness. Help us reach that goal! Buy some stickers, pass them out, give them to your banker, your coffee shop, your customers. You will see the impact they have for yourself. Share your stories with us on Facebook and here on this blog site.

Collectively we can make a difference!
Mia
The Kindess Crew

Sweetness someone else’s cup today...

Goodwill works year around. 

Committing random, generous acts are bending the trend. 

Buy a stranger a cup of coffee and make a new friend. 

Link to your neighbor next door with a little pink sticker. 

Place kindness anywhere, its become the economic kicker. 

Circling the globe one million kind acts are paving the way. 

Take a moment, be the change, pay it forward, you’ll sweeten someone else's day.

Farewell to a Friend

"A good teacher is like a candle - consuming itself to light the way for others"  Author Unknown

As some of you are aware, Carry Out Kindness is the brain child of a group of BTB Feng Shui practitioners. Led by our mentor Katherine Metz, we engaged in this project as a way to practice and demonstrate principles taught by our greater teacher, H.H. Grandmaster Professor Lin Yun. As a Buddhist, Professor taught his students from a particular point of view, one of inquiry and of compassion.

The Carry Out Kindness project was designed with both of these principles at it's core. Our mission, to demonstrate the link between good deeds and prosperity. To help people see the ways that the two concepts are connected and then to engage in active conversation with others through social media.

Professor Lin Yun passed away on Wednesday, August 11, 2010. Though his health was fragile, he was always pleased to see new ways of practicing his teachings. From a distance he watched our effort begin to grow, like a lotus, from the mud of conception to the blooming that we are beginning to see as you engage in this conversation with us. He encouraged us to be bold and outrageous, to turn our thinking upside down if need be. Most of all though, he encouraged us to be kind, to help when asked, to make compassion a way of life.

Though our hearts are heavy we know that Professor continues to guide our project. We are so very excited that you have begun to spread our stickers, vibrant reminders of kindness, around the globe. We have set in motion a global conversation about prosperity and kindness, their connectedness, and their interplay in the everyday lives of people. We continue to invite you to join us!

He would be pleased.

The secret to the economic recovery.

Endless Kindness!

Goodwill works in every situation. Its the secret to the economic recovery. So simple in execution yet effective in results. We want to span the globe with Kindness. It takes a nifty pink sticker and you! Link to a friend in Nigeria or your next door neighbor. Our goal is to generate one million kind acts among 195 countries before this campaign is over. Join us in making the next minute a kind one.

KINDNESS and The Waitress Saga: PLEASE BLOG IN AND SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

The graduate class assignment appeared simple enough. I was to be open to the universe, be in harmony, avoid any form of resistance and document my experiment in an essay. The irony was not lost upon me. Surely, I needed to be in control. I was struggling through a nasty divorce and in a life full of chaos, uncertainty and colored by shades of pain and confusion. Being open to the universe was not an option. Control and strength were my post-divorce mantra. Nonetheless, my common sense and student responsibility won out, and, hence, unbeknownst to anyone, as stipulated in the assignment, I picked a fateful day and unsuspecting accomplices. I met my dear friend, Michelle, downtown. Our good intentions to go for a walk quickly dissolved when we ended up in front of a new restaurant in the neighborhood. When Michelle suggested checking it out, I, now open to the powers of the universe, was quick to agree. A young waitress came by to serve us. Hence began the saga of the waitress. Your homework question comes at the end. We asked questions about the menu items, and the puzzled look on the waitress’ face about EVERY question was trying my patience. She did not know anything. I took a deep breath, punctuated by a sharp gasp when I saw the steep prices. I had offered to pay for Michelle rather than walk back to get her forgotten purse. I remembered the instructions from class: take two deep breaths; switch to “I-Thou” mode; let whatever happens, happen; be open to the universe. Gulp. I had a craving for the mutton buttons on the menu. Then, the waitress told me that mutton was veal. I looked at her in total disbelief: “How can mutton be veal?” I asked. “Veal is beef, and I don’t eat beef. Are you sure?” I pressed. “Yes,” she replied. “The chef told me that mutton was veal buttons.” I was terribly confused and upset. All this time was I so silly to think that mutton was not beef? On my way to the washroom, I ran into the chef. I asked him why there was no lamb or mutton in his kitchen. He said, “mutton buttons, then.” “But your waitress said mutton is veal?” He looked at me like I was an idiot and said, gesticulating with his hands:”What’s wrong with you? Mutton is mutton, and veal is veal.” He, then, promised to change my order and make me mutton buttons. I felt a sense of brain fuzziness: The waitress had apparently completely turned my common sense to mush. Finally, our meals arrived - beef for Michelle and muttons buttons for me. I looked at the slices of meat on my plate and pressed, “This is mutton, right?” The waitress said, “I guarantee it.” I trusted her; I mean, she worked here, right. She must know. I had a few mouthfuls of the meat and felt uneasy. Then I heard a voice say, “So, how’s the beef?” I looked up and saw the owner of the restaurant looking at me. In shock, I pointed to my plate and said, “What’s this?” “That’s the beef shwarma,” he said. I felt nausea. I felt ill. I do not eat beef, and I was confused at the universe. What happened with this being open thing? I was ready to go into battle. I was ready to stand up when Michelle insisted we simply pay and leave. Was she insane? I stared at the young waitress. In class, we had discussed a story where a waiter was inefficient because he had just buried his wife the day before. The waiter in this story broke down when the customers continued to be kind to him in spite of his blunders. I looked at my young waitress who was barely 21. I wondered: “Could she, too, have buried a dead spouse yesterday? Did she deserve continued kindness because, after all, she needed the money to live – her only livelihood to feed her fatherless children? Maybe she had had such a tragic life that she could not tell the difference between goat, cow, sheep, mutton, veal or beef.” I checked in with my homework mode, and I was surprised to find that I was still in ‘kind” mode. Ok – I did as Michelle suggested. I signed the Mastercard receipt, reluctantly, but without voicing any objections as I usually would have. At the door, the owner of the restaurant who knew of what had happened looked rather distressed. I simply wished him well and turned to wave at the chef. The next thing I knew, Michelle and I were both herded to the back of the restaurant, seated at a table, and, there on, began an intriguing evening filled with amazing food, conversations and feelings of hospitality and kindness. They apologized for the foolishness of the young waitress who had made so many mistakes all week. In fact, they fired her on the spot. I saw her leave the restaurant in tears. I was responsible for this tragedy? “Yikes,” I thought. ‘That’s not what was supposed to happen to the waitress in my homework assignment.” I felt ill. Here is where we take a pause for your homework question. If the universe is a benign power, should the waitress have been fired? What is your definition of kind? What is “kind” in the work force? Please share your stands and/or other similar stories.