This morning, while walking into a store to buy some coffee, a woman who was leaving the store decided to hold the door open for me.  To me, this is a normal thing for people to do for one another in public.  In fact, it is so common place, that when the opposite happens and someone allows the door to a public place to close in my face, I become offended.  There was nothing out of the ordinary here, except that she started holding the door for me when I was still 25 feet or so away.  When someone is more than just a few steps away, I, along with most people, find it completely normal to allow the door to close. After all, you can’t expect every complete stranger to wait for you everywhere you go.

When I finally reached the door and grab held of it, I said “Thank you.” I must have had a look on my face that gave away my thoughts and made her feel the need to explain to because she promptly replied with a smile, “This is my ‘random act of kindness’ for the day.” Although I felt the explanation was completely unnecessary, I’m glad she did.  She gave me something to think about.

What is “Random Acts of Kindness?”  I’ve heard about this trending wave of behavior before and I’ve always taken it as a way to encourage people to do nice things for others. It’s a nice way to spread the word of goodwill in our society and it seems to work, but it’s not working properly.  Although this girl was on the right track, once she explained to me why she had held the door, I felt like it took all of the sincerity out of her act of kindness.   She had not held open the door for me. She held open the door for herself.  She held open the door so that she could say, “That was my random act of kindness for the day” which is exactly what she did say! To me! She was holding the door as a goal. Based on her statement, her goals is “1 random act of kindness per day.” While I believe it’s a great thing to have good intentions, they shouldn’t be goals. Random Acts of Kindness is a mindset. It reminds me of when I was a boy scout and they encouraged us to do good deeds because they were the right thing to do. When? At any possible opportunity. How many? As many as the day provides you.  “Never let a good deed go undone.”

Whether we do one or thousand good acts or deeds a day, we should do them because we want to help others. We should do them because it is the right thing to do, and we should do them silently without the approval of others.  Random Acts of Kindness is a fantastic thing to be involved in, but it’s not a competition. Remember, a random act of kindness should be selfless.  We should encourage ourselves and our friends to do good deeds, but not encourage them to brag about it or desire to be recognized for every act because this takes the selflessness out of the good deeds and turns it into a Random Act of Selfishness, which is the very thing we are trying to rid the world of.