This week was my final week! On Sunday I completed the last Kindness Countdown challenge, and it was probably my favourite so far. For this week, I went with my grandpa to a retirement home he goes to visit every Sunday. 

When I was creating my proposal for my project, I knew I wanted my final challenge to be related to volunteering, but I didn’t know where to choose. Then I thought of the kindest person I know – my grandpa. He cares so much for people that many think he’s crazy for how often he puts others before himself. He is also more passionate about his volunteering than anyone else I know.

He goes to a retirement home every single Sunday morning. I never really knew what he did there or why it was so important to him that he goes, so I decided to ask if I could go with him for a week. The moment I asked his whole face lit up. He was so excited and kept telling me how much I would love it. I still was unsure what to expect, but his excitement was enough to convince me that I had made the right decision.  

On the way to the retirement home on Sunday morning, my grandpa explained to me that he is part of a church group that goes to Cedarbrook Lodge Retirement Residence. Every week they go and have a service where they sing and then someone comes to speak. We arrived early to help set up the room. When we got there, someone had already set it up for us and there was a senior sitting waiting for the service to start. While my grandpa was preparing for the service, I sat down beside the lady already sitting in the room. Her name was Rena. She told me all about her grandkids, how she was excited about the warm weather, and how she loved it when my grandpa came every Sunday. I asked her why and she said, “is he the one who plays the accordion?” I nodded yes and she responded with “It’s beautiful, there isn’t enough music in this place.” That statement alone was enough to break my heart. 

The service went well. I was amazed at how they all worked together to get there. There was this one lady, Christine, who was in a wheelchair but she went around and helped push everyone else in a wheelchair to the service so no one would miss it. I also loved watching their faces light up as my grandpa played his accordion. It is something he has always loved to do, so seeing it be used to make such a positive difference was inspiring. 

The real magic, however, happened after the service. The speaker and his wife left, but my grandpa stayed behind. He went around the lobby to greet almost every person there. He knew everyone by name. He asked them about their families and joked and laughed with them. Every time he introduced me as “his beautiful granddaughter,” and they would all laugh saying even they didn’t have grandchildren my age. They would tell me after that they could say that to him because they were his friends.

Not only did my grandpa talk with them, but he got them singing and dancing in the lobby. He would be talking to two or three people and begin to play a song they requested. Eventually, a large crowd would join in as everyone came to see what was going on. This gave us the opportunity to meet more people and hear some really interesting stories.

You could see the difference on their face when he talked to them. They knew he was genuinely interested in their lives and cared how they were. I could tell by talking to some of them that many didn’t have a lot of family come to visit them. Seeing my grandpa every week may be the only consistent visitor many of them have.

My grandpa is the most passionate and considerate person I have ever met. He has this unique ability to draw people to him and make them feel important. If I can attain even half the amount of kindness he has, then I will be a better person for it.

This was a challenge that I didn’t realize would be as meaningful as it was. I watched my grandpa combine a caring attitude with his talents and saw the results. This is the kind of person I want to be. There was no other challenge that could have been as motivating to pursue kindness after this project than going with him this Sunday to witness him in action. I will definitely go back as often as I can to support him.

The weeks are quickly flying by and I am already on my second last challenge. This week my goal was to spend some time with my family. I have four younger siblings and each of them have very full schedules. Because it can be difficult to make time for them, I decided to dedicate this week’s challenge to them. 

When I arrived home from the airport on Monday night, they gave me a warm welcome back. I was very exhausted because I had been awake since four in the morning, but I appreciated their excitement to see me. My family completely understood my exhaustion and forced me to go to bed soon after my arrival. 

The next evening, I was still quite tired but needed to force myself to stay awake to try and get back into creating a normal sleeping pattern. My two youngest siblings were watching a movie downstairs. I think it was a Disney channel movie, but I can’t remember the name of it. However, I sat with them and watched a two-hour movie about a girl who had never played soccer before but was placed on a soccer team. Spoiler alert, she scores the winning goal at the end of the film. 

My siblings talked away commenting on the whole movie, as you do when you’re ten, and it was honestly just nice to watch them have such a good time. I listened to all their little stories throughout the movie, which ended up being a great strategy to keep me awake. 

For our next hangout, I had planned to do something a little more active, but the weather that week was not great. We were going to go bowling or mini-golfing, but there were snowstorms for most of the end of the week. The roads seemed too bad to risk driving just to play a round of mini-golf, so we ended up staying home instead. 

We had a board game day indoors and then my sister and I spent almost two hours just talking and catching up on one another’s lives. We have always been close, but she just began college this year, so we hardly see each other anymore with our conflicting schedules. It was nice to find out what was going on with her. 

This week’s challenge was nothing elaborate, but my main goal this week was to make sure my siblings didn’t feel neglected. I don’t always make the time for them that I should or hang out with them as much as I used to. They’re all growing up to be awesome people and even though they are at completely different stages in life, it is important to still make sure they feel supported. 

This week’s challenge took place internationally in the beautiful country of Northern Ireland. On Friday, February 12, 2020, I hopped on a plane and arrived on Saturday morning to what has to be the greenest place on earth. It was a breath of fresh air from the grey atmosphere that has loomed over Toronto since late November. 

Throughout the week as I drove around the narrow, bendy roads of Northern Ireland I had a chance to escape my stress and take a much-needed breather from the overwhelming pace of life as a two-job holding, but still broke student. Being away from everything was enough to make me happy, so I was excited to complete this week’s challenge and share my joy with others. My goal for the week was to complete three pay-it-forward challenges. 

To begin I had to figure out what exactly it meant to “pay it forward.” When I created my project proposal, I thought to pay it forward just meant buying something for the person behind you and starting a chain reaction. This does count as a pay it forward movement, but after some research, I realized there are many other things that count as paying it forward. Basically, any unexpected, unplanned kind act you do for someone else is paying it forward. Even some of the things I have done in previous weeks count as paying it forward. For example, complimenting a stranger or buying someone a coffee. 

This made it much easier to complete this week’s challenge since paying it forward encompassed much more than I originally thought. However, I cannot take all the credit for this week as my boyfriend Philip graciously drove me around Northern Ireland to help me complete my challenges.

To start the week, we bought donuts from Tim Hortons and brought them to his parents during their shift at work. Yes, they have Tim Hortons in Northern Ireland! It just opened and it is actually much nicer than many of our Canadian Tim Hortons locations. We chose it because it was new and Canadian, so it seemed the most appropriate café choice. Also, I chose to start by doing something nice for his parents since they kindly let me stay at their house. They run their own business, so when it’s busy it can be difficult to catch a moment eat. We dropped them off a small snack to give them a quick breather during the middle of the day. 

Next, we drove Philip’s grandmother to the retirement home his grandfather is in. His grandfather has been quite sick for the last few months so he is not able to live at home and Philip’s grandmother can’t drive. She goes to visit him every day but didn’t have a ride one afternoon. Philip and I cancelled our plans to go on a tour of the North coast and dropped her off so that she could still spend time with him. 

My final challenge I completed at the airport. I was really nervous about this one because I wasn’t sure how people would receive it. I chickened out quite a few times in the process, but eventually mustered the courage to leave money to pay for the person behind me. I had the opportunity to do it throughout the week, but I wanted to do it at the airport. I think airports are one of the most stressful places to be in. It’s a very intense environment and there are so many ways something could go wrong. Plus, people spend their whole day sitting around waiting so everyone is tired and frustrated, including me. I decided airports need a little more joy, so for my final pay it forward challenge I bought a coffee and paid for it with a larger bill to cover some of the people’s orders who were waiting in line behind me. I didn’t stay to see how they received my gesture, but I hope it made someone’s day a little less frustrating.

Overall, I had a really enjoyable reading week. I am coming home feeling refreshed and thankful that I had time to spend outside of work. Escaping my very busy schedule was a motivation booster and a reminder to take a step back and realize not everything has to be as intense as I make it out to be in my head. This week’s challenges only contributed to inspiring me, so I was very thankful that this was the one project I did not take a break from over reading week.

This week’s challenge was to perform four acts of kindness for people I care about. This was to encourage me to show appreciation for the people in my life who go above and beyond for me. I am a person who is easily stressed out and overwhelmed, but I have a really amazing support system. My family, friends, and even my co-workers go out of their way to help me cope with any problem I am having, so this week was dedicated to showing them a small glimpse of my thankfulness for them.

The recipients of the week’s first surprise were my family. Both of my parents work full-time and because we have such a big family my mom spends a lot of time in the grocery store. On Monday night I finished work at four, so I immediately went grocery shopping so that I could make dinner. I messaged my mom before going so she didn’t go herself and told her to let me know if there was anything she needed. Admittedly I am not the best cook, but I know that my mom hates cooking so I thought I would give it a shot. I made honey garlic chicken tacos and popcorn shrimp for dinner. The shrimp definitely could have used improvement, but everyone was nice about it and thanked me anyway. 

The next two acts I counted as half an act each because both of the people receiving my “kind deeds” deserve so much more than what I did for them. For example, my grandpa always drives me to the airport, fills my car up with gas, and surprises me by buying me food often. He is so thoughtful without even trying so I knew nothing I could do for him would be enough to express my thankfulness for him, but I still wanted to do something. I am going away for reading week, so he is keeping my car at his house while I am gone. I made sure to clean the car, filled it up with gas, and left him a Tim Hortons gift card on the dashboard of the car with a note begging him to use it. 

The second half of this act was dropping off a coffee to one of my co-workers in the middle of their shift. This co-worker listens to all my problems, always tries to cover my shifts when I need it and has even come into work on his day off to help me when I’ve been left stranded in the store by myself. He is the embodiment of kindness, so I wanted to do something for him as well. I acknowledge how small these acts were, but I still hope that they brightened each person’s day at least a little. 

 My third surprise ended up being more of a fantasy than an actual success, but I did make an effort. One of my classmates and closest friends is also doing a kindness project for our course in non-violent communication. For her project she is becoming vegan for six weeks, but I know she is struggling with it. I wanted to try and surprise her with a vegan breakfast to cheer her up. The main problem is she is a chef and I very much am not. She has a cooking page where she posts incredible recipes, but I am satisfied when I make a mediocre sandwich. That was obstacle one, but I thought “I’m a university student, I can follow a recipe,” so I went off and purchased all my necessary ingredients to make vegan French toast. She was going kickboxing early Thursday morning, so I told her to come over to my house after and get ready for class with me. Thursday morning came and I woke up early to get ready and attempt my breakfast. As I was about to start the recipe, I tried to put my blender together, but a piece was missing. I searched all over the kitchen, called my mom, and asked my sister to help me look, but we could not find this piece of the blender.  Thankfully we had lots of fruit and I made her avocado toast in a quick attempt to save it, but I was more than a little disappointed that my original recipe didn’t work out. Good thing I have an awesome friend who just laughed it off and still thanked me anyway. 

    My final kind act for the week was for my boyfriend. He deserves all the kindness in the world. For Christmas, he messaged one of my friends who creates the most beautiful digital art and asked her to draw an animation of one of our photos together. It was so beautiful and such an awesome gift, so my last project for this week was to go out and get two copies printed and framed. I kept one for myself but am giving the other as a gift to him. 

    I was very excited to do these projects because I love to surprise other people and see them happy. The hardest part was choosing what four things to do because when I was planning out my week, I realized I have so many people to be thankful for. I fully acknowledge that everything I did this week is incredibly small in comparison to what all of these people have done for me, so honestly, this week was more for me than them. Seeing each of their reactions to such minor gifts made it even easier to be grateful for them. 

This week’s project was a little more difficult than last week. This week I decided to reach out to five different people that I have either lost touch with or failed to message in a long time. I found it hard to know who to start a conversation with, but there were people who I have wanted to reconnect with for a while, so I used this week’s challenge as a motivator to just go for it.

I started small. One of my cousins from Ireland sent me a picture of us when we were kids. I decided to use that as a conversation starter to find out what’s going on with him and what he’s been up to. He had spent three months in Thailand and is now back in Ireland saving up for his next trip, so he was giving me lots of travel and life advice as I am planning on graduating university this semester. After talking to him I thought of another cousin who lives in Ireland. She let me stay with her the first time I ever went over there and went out of her way to make me feel welcome, so I messaged her on Instagram. It turns out her and her husband are trying to organize a trip to Toronto, so I was able to help her plan the best tourist destinations to visit while she’s here.

Next I thought of friends that I had lost touch with. One girl I had grown up with shared a photo of her and her family on Instagram, so I sent her a message saying that I hoped she was doing well and that I missed her. She instantly replied and it was nice to catch up on each other’s lives. I also messaged a girl who I had been very close with in high school. Once university began, we slowly grew apart and I always feel disappointed that we didn’t make more of an effort to maintain our friendship. While it felt different talking to her again since our relationship has changed, it was interesting to see what she’s doing now and what her future plans are. She even suggested meeting when I arrive home from my trip to Ireland, which is something I hope we will have the opportunity to do.

I couldn’t think of a fifth person that I was “out of touch with”, so I sent my grandma a text. I see her almost every Sunday, but I hardly ever message her throughout the week. I thought she might appreciate a message from me, since I am not able to visit her as often as she would like me too.

This week’s challenge pushed me outside of my comfort zone. I am a shy person, so I often struggle to initiate conversation. However, each person I contacted was someone that I wanted to maintain a connection with, so using this challenge as a motivator to force myself to reach out to them was definitely worthwhile. It enabled me to learn really interesting aspects of other people’s lives that I may not have been able to be part of without initiating those conversations.

To begin my kindness countdown, I started by complimenting six different people. The goal was to compliment six strangers, but as I began it was much harder than I thought it would be. Complimenting people is not difficult, but I thought I did it much more frequently than I do. As the week progressed, I realized I am not as observant as I initially thought I was.

The week began and I had submitted a proposal for my project where I indicated my interest in completing a series of challenges to encourage me to become more kind. My professor immediately approved my project, but two days passed, and I had still not complimented a single person and had hardly even noticed the people around me. On day three I was shopping at the mall and I complimented a stranger’s outfit and a cashier’s nails. The cashier did not even acknowledge my comment, but I tried not to be discouraged.

I was a little more nervous after that encounter, so my next compliments were to people who were more in my comfort zone. I complimented my new co-worker and a friend of my mom. I also complimented a lady at my church who performed a beautiful solo. I had only spoken to her several times before, but her performance almost brought me to tears, so I went up after the service to speak with her.

Of all my experiences this week, my most memorable was comforting a stressed-out McDonald’s employee who was struggling to survive a busy shift when the restaurant was understaffed. I had been coming home from work myself. One of my coworkers didn’t show up to work, so I ended up having to stay forty minutes later than I was scheduled to. The only thing open by the time I was leaving work was McDonalds. I pulled into the drive-through to order, but the line-up was very long. Another car pulled in behind me, so I was trapped and forced to wait. By the time I got to the window I was frustrated, hungry, tired, and just wanted to be at home. However, I took one look at the worker’s panicked face and realized it probably mirrored my own expression less than an hour prior. She opened the window and apologized profusely saying it was only her and her manager scheduled because some of her co-workers didn’t show up to work that night. I told her that I had just experienced the same thing myself so that she could take as long as she needed to. I also tried to encourage her by saying she was doing a really good job working under pressure and wished her a good night.

Although it was difficult initially to get into the spirit of being aware and appreciating the people around me, it paid off in the end. I felt more connected to people and found myself trying to see things from other peoples’ perspective. I realized we are all stumbling through life blindly, so sometimes something as simple as a compliment is enough to comfort someone else. I also learned that even if not everyone appreciates your positivity, to not be discouraged because there could be someone ahead who really needs it.