Welcome to the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge brought together by WEGO Health – a social network for all health activists.  Again, I am participating in the annual Writer’s Month Challenge in which I will be writing about my health activism and health condition based upon given prompts.

Friday 3rd April 

We love random acts of kindness.  Write about a time that you benefitted from the kindness of a stranger, or a time when you were the one extending a helping hand.  How did you feel?

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud” – Maya Angelou

A random of kindness is  defined as a ‘selfless act performed by a person or people wishing either to assist or cheer up an individual person or a group of people’.

Think about how you would feel if you were to receive a random act of kindness by a stranger (or unknown person).  It can positively influence your entire day, right?  It certainly does, I know from personal experience that small acts of kindness that has been afforded to me makes a bad day just a little brighter.

Random acts of kindness does not even have to be big gestures – letters from a pen pal, a small gift from Mum or even a smile from a stranger are small tokens that can turn a day from being bad into a good day.

But perhaps being on the receiving end of a random act of kindness can often mean so much more when we are struggling and going through a particularly rough time due to chronic illness.

One personal anecdote of being on the receiving end of a random act of kindness only happened a few months ago.  As previously mentioned, the symptoms that I experience as a result of my neurological condition were particularly severe, and was struggling with even the basic of tasks.  I felt that I was so abnormally different to everyone else my age and frustrated over the limitations that my condition places on my life.

A couple of weeks passed by, and a mysterious package arrived on my doorstep (it was mysterious in the sense that I had not ordered anything).  Inside the said package, was a beautiful necklace of a snowflake with a message printed on a card, which read ‘Let this snowflake remind you how unique and wonderful you are’.

 

To this day, I still do not know who sent this beautiful necklace but I am extremely grateful to whoever did as this little gesture let a little sunshine into my life, when it was full of storm clouds.  Not only did this act of kindness brighten my day but it was also a wonderful reminder that is okay to be different, and it is our differences that make us special. Our uniqueness is what sets us apart and makes us the person we are.  In addition, it was lovely knowing that somebody thought of me enough to find the necklace and send it to me.  And of course, the person must have been particularly special for extending the kindness to me but also wanting to stay anonymous.

Isn’t that the most wonderful act of kindness?

And now I have joined a wonderful Facebook group to send letters and small gifts to others in a similar situation to myself who are struggling.  Paying the little random act of kindness forward to someone else in need.