BY: JESSICA BEUKER
Among all of the New Year’s diet, exercise, and cut-back-on-drinking resolutions, Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman made a resolution as well. But it’s not just one for the New Year; it’s one that will hopefully ripple through the rest of their lives: be more kind.
Walsh and Goodman, creators of the 40 Days of Dating project, have recently launched a new experiment—12 Kinds of Kindness. The aim of the new project is to bring fulfillment and happiness to themselves and to everyone around them.
According to Good Magazine, “For each month throughout a year, Walsh and Goodman tested out different ways in which humans—ranging from family members to strangers—express empathy, find forgiveness, and show appreciation through a variety of meaningful actions and interactions. The result is a collection of stories, photos, videos, and illustrations that challenge and inspire readers to practice being better people.”
The 12 steps are:
- Can I Help You?
- Open Your Eyes
- Switch It Up
- Don’t Beat Yourself Up
- Forgive and Forget
- Face Yourself
- Kill Them With Kindness
- Walk a Mile In Their Shoes
- Go Big or Go Home
- Pay It Forward
- Wear a Smile
- Dive Deep
The 12 steps range from simple to challenging. Simple steps might include something as easy, yet overlooked, as smiling, whereas a challenging step might involve forgiving someone who hurt you in the past. Some steps are challenging in the fact that they rely on the trust and actions of others.
For the first step, Walsh and Goodman simply walked around New York City and asked random strangers, “How can I help you?” The answers varied, with some people just wanting an ear to listen to their stories, while others didn’t need help but were interested in the project, and some were desperate for ordinary comforts, like the homeless man who asked for a blanket and the young skateboarder who was just released from jail and couldn’t afford a sandwich. The list of people they were able to help by doing small deeds is long, and the people they couldn’t help were happy to have their stories heard and to simply be seen for a change.
“This city encourages you to move so fast, to be so ambitious and individualistic…Guess it’s been easier to build myself a shell and focus only on myself and my own needs, rather than face the pain and suffering going on in the world around me every day,” wrote Walsh on their website. “I have to face it: I’ve become the worst kind of person. I’m privileged and apathetic, and I live a primarily self-centered life,” she added, explaining how most people selectively choose to be blind to the people and the world around us.
The project launched this week and has steps one and two available. The other steps will continue to be updated until Feb. 11. The video below is a preview of some of the steps that Walsh and Goodman completed throughout the year. Hopefully it will inspire you to be a little more kind. “Kindness is one thing we all have the ability to share. It’s free, it feels great, and it’s within our control.”
Image sources: istock.com, youtube.com
