Spread Kindness – The Spark Hope Tag

The world can be a scary place these days.  There is no shortage of bad news and everyone is fighting their own battle.  So I always try to be kind to everyone, but these days we need more than that.  Random acts of kindness (ROAK) are a great way to bring something positive into someone’s life.  If more people would spread kindness, the world would be a better place.

Random Act of Kindness Challenge

Recently Soo Hyun wrote a post about random acts of kindness and tagged me in it.  She was inspired seeing a woman buy a homeless man a yogurt drink in Korea.  Not just the fact that she bought him a drink but she showed compassion giving it to him.  It gave her hope, so she decided to create the spark hope tag to help spread the love. Once you are tagged you must do your own act of kindness and then tag others to continue the trend.  Thank Soo Hyun for the inspiration and the random act of kindness challenge.  

My Kindness Challenge Idea

Since this is a travel blog, I wanted my random act of kindness to be travel related.  I decided that I would carry out a random act of kindness for the flight attendants on my Cathay Pacific long haul flight from JFK to Hong Kong.  Of course, without flight attendants, the travel we do would not be possible.

Flight attendants do not have an easy job.  Their schedules can be brutal and constantly change.  Customers don’t listen and sometimes take out their frustrations on them.  Plus they are undercompensated, although the flight benefits are a nice perk.  One of my college friends, Julie, recently became a flight attendant and the stories she has told me have made me appreciate all they do.

So for my flight, I decided I would get a box of chocolates and a thank you card to give to the flight attendants.  The morning of my flight, I picked up a box of Lindt truffles and a thank you card from Duane Reade, it cost me $20.12.  Nothing too fancy.  It is more about the gesture and the thought than the money spent.  Random acts of kindness notes can be priceless!

I didn’t wrap the chocolates as I was worried it might cause issues going through security.  Inside the card, I hand wrote “Thanks for all that you do” and signed my name.  

My ROAK

I waited until after the first meal service when the flight attendants were not busy and walked up to the crew area to give them my gift.  When I handed over the gift, the flight attendant gave was confused at first.  “What is this?” she asked.  I told her it was chocolates for the crew as a thank you.  She asked for my name, so I wrote it down for her.  I could tell it made her happy, so in my mind, I thought that would be it.  I went back to my seat.  Then soon after another flight attendant came by with some desserts from first class as a thank you gesture to me.  I was not expecting that!

It didn’t stop there either.  I did not count how many flight attendants stopped by seat to personally thank me.  Later, the head flight attendant stopped by and gave me a card signed by all the flight attendants thanking me.  To say they appreciated the gesture is an understatement!  I couldn’t believe how gracious they were.

So looking back on it, my random act of kindness not only made a big impact on the flight crew but it made my day as well.  I did not think it was going to make the impact on them that it did.  

Let’s Spread Kindness

I do always try to be kind and do things for people I care about, but this experience has motivated me to try to do more for other people that I don’t know.  It did not take much effort or expense on my part but look at the payoff.  Especially with all the hate that exists in this world today, we could all use a little more love and random acts of kindness.  

So today, I tag myself, Katherine, Russell, all of our readers, as well as Katie from Untold Morsels, Angie from Feet Do Travel, Vicky from Eat Sleep Love Travel, and Stephanie from Ginger on the Go  to participate in the random acts of kindness challenge

So let’s get out there and spread kindness today! I would love to hear about your random acts of kindness in the comments.

-Anisa

Last Updated on September 18, 2020