Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action. Your positive action combined with positive thinking results in success. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

I’m sure I’m not alone in this, I’ll be walking through a store or looking at a website and I think, hmmm, I bet my friend would really like that. It’s a great thought and I move on and sometimes a few days later it hits me that I really should have gotten that for them. I feel bad, but there are no real consequences to opting not to do something nice for people and I go on about my life.

Recently I’ve decided that I need to start acting on these thoughts. What brought this idea about for me was being back in New Orleans at Mardi Gras a few weeks ago. You see one of the times that I acted on this type of thought was when I was at Mardi Gras about 5 years ago. I was at the parades and catching lots of beads and other throws and while I was giving a lot away to kids around me, it hit me that my nieces and nephews might enjoy some as well. So the next night at the parades I brought a bag and collected a ton of throws. The next day I hiked up to the post office and packed several boxes and sent them out. I was right, they were thrilled to get a bunch of Mardi Gras beads and nick-nacks. This past year I sent back boxes to them, as well as to my assistant at work for her kids.

The type of things I’m talking about don’t have to be large or expensive. It can be picking up a cup of coffee for someone, or as simple as grabbing a sticker for a little kid. So after coming back from Mardi Gras, I spent a lot of time thinking about my trip, I’m admittedly someone who spends time ruminating on the things I do and that happen in my life. And in that process I decided that I needed to change my ways and start acting on these type of thoughts more often.

Recently, I was in the office of a colleague and she’s a really wonderful and incredibly nice person. She mentioned that the week before she had her sixtieth birthday. I wished her a belated happy birthday, I had been in New Orleans at that time, and went on about my day. But it hit me I should do something, and this was exactly the type of thought I’m talking about. She has a couple of cats she dearly loves and so I went out a few days later and picked up a nice plant, a card and a couple of toys for the kitties. It was a small matter but it did exactly what these little types of actions do. It made her happy when she got the gifts, it made me happy to have done it for her.

That’s what giving to others does, it creates happiness on both sides, it makes both the giver and the receiver happier than they were before. And so deciding to act on these things is a way to bring more happiness into the world. In a way, it was my Granny that taught me this lesson. She was that person that always sent you a card. You got a card for your birthday, all the major holidays and sometimes even minor holidays, maybe not Arbor Day, but definitely Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day. The thing she also did, almost psychically, was to randomly send a five or a ten dollar bill in the mail. I’ve told this story often, but when I was a grad student at the University of Tennessee, I was often broke. And it always seemed when I was broke, and it was still a week to payday, I’d find a ten dollar bill in the mail and a note saying get a burger and a beer on me. All of these cards, while small gestures, always made that day better.

So friends, when you have those thoughts, if you can, act, drop a small bit of happiness on someone you care about, or hell, even a perfect stranger, you’ll make everyone happier and of course, have a happier day my friend. ~ Rev Kane