Last Thursday, I gave the speech that would give me Competent Communicator status.
After 9 speeches, the tenth one was to inspire my audience. I have selected the imaginary situation where I appointed to join and lead a kindness committee at my company. The title of the speech: One coffee at a time. Having only finished the speech the night before, I was nervous for not learning the speech by heart. I faltered a couple of times and glanced at my notes, but it went relatively well. Here's the speech:
Have you ever wanted to scream at a coworker in the course
of the day? Or fought the urge to throw something at them? This happens to me way
more often than I would like to admit. Sometimes I snap at them or I let out
exasperated sighs. Then I feel guilty about not being patient and kind. This is
what motivated me to join and lead the Kindness committee.
Fellow employees, in a world where bullying is a reality
for one in every 3 students, in a world where the news reports show more
atrocities around the world than good being done, in a world where kindness is
almost a novelty; where are we, as a society, heading? Do you hold the door to
the person behind you or do you let it flatten their nose? Do you give your
seat to someone in need or feign sleep? Do you try to help your coworker out
when he has a deadline or just go about completing your own tasks? If we do not
practice being kind to each other, could we survive as a community? More
importantly, will the next generation know what kindness is? When I asked
myself these questions, I made an astounding discovery. People, like you and I,
may not be intrinsically kind, but they can work at it and inspire others to do
the same. How do we become kinder and make the world around us kinder?
There are 2 ways we could do this. The
first one, which I have seen a friend advertise on Facebook, is to follow the
Pay-it-forward formula. The first step is to commit to be kind to a number of
people, say 3, and that in turn, instead of repaying you for the kindness, they
would pay the kindness forward to someone else. What if I turn back and hold
the door for the person behind me ? Wouldn’t that person also hold the door for
the person behind him? What if I pay for the next one in line when I get my
coffee tomorrow morning? Would that
person also pay for the 3rd person in line? That’s exactly what
someone did at a Tim Hortons drive-thru in Winnipeg and the pay-it-forward
chain lasted for 3 hours and 28 minutes, until someone refused to pay for the
next customer in line. That person was depicted as ‘The Grinch’. I’m sure there
was more than just one Grinch in that line, but nobody before him, wanted to be
the one to stop the chain. Most people find it far worse to be labeled as a
jerk than to pay for the next order. Nonetheless, it lasted a few hours and it
all started with ONE individual doing ONE simple gesture of kindness. A gesture
that both you and I could do.
A second way of infusing more kindness in the world is to go
BIG, like, really big. Have you heard of the young man in Edmonton who bought
himself a donut and a coffee and then paid for the next 500 large coffees? He
was talked about in the news, without being on the news. Nobody knows why he
did it, he just walked in, ordered his breakfast and paid $859 on his debit
card. And then he left. He stays anonymous, but I’m sure the satisfaction he
must have had of making 500 coffee lovers happy is exhilarating. A week later,
another Tim Hortons customer did the same thing in another city. Now, a year later,
I still remember the news segment on that story. Not only are these big random
acts of kindness, as they call it, likely to have a ripple effect, but they
have a greater impact on us. We talk about it for DAYS, even more so if we are
one of the 500, or if we know someone these 500 customers.
Imagine how you would feel if when you are about to pay the
cashier for your coffee, she says that it has already been taken care of.
Wouldn’t that make your day? Wouldn’t you want to share your joy around? ‘You
know what happened to me today? Someone paid for my coffee!’ At a minimum, it
makes one person happy. In reality, it makes at least 2 people happy. I
remember the Friends episode where Joey tells Phoebe that no act of charity or
kindness is selfless, because the person doing the good deed feels good about
making someone else’s life better. If you do not care about saving society from
a lack of kindness, or about setting an example for the next generation, then
at least do it to feel good about yourself and encourage others to do the same.
If you were here last week, you would have heard Wendy, our
area governor talk about ‘heroes-in-waiting’ in her speech. Ordinary people who
have the potential to be heroes. We do not all have to be heroes, we can
improve the world one coffee at a time. Both examples I gave today, the pay it
forward chain at the drive thru in Winnipeg and the guy who paid for 500
coffees in Edmonton , happened at Tim Hortons. Most of us get a cup of coffee
or tea in the morning, so these are both things we could do without straying
too far from our daily routine. Whether we choose to start small and just pay
for a friend’s coffee or we want to make a big splash and touch as many people
as possible, it only needs one person to start a chain reaction. To improve
ourselves and paint a kinder picture around us, it has to start with nobody
else but US! Let’s stop being spectators to the disintegration of kindness
around us and commit to just ONE act of kindness TODAY. I assure you that it
will not be wasted. It will be one additional day where kindness prevails. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘You
cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too
late.’
