acts of kindness
I’VE BEEN THINKING about the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day a lot since the beginning of the second Trump presidency. Like Bill Murray’s disgruntled TV weatherman Phil Connors, who’s forced to relive Feb. 2 on an unending loop, many of us feel like we’re reliving a nightmare. We find ourselves taking steps backward from progress we thought was permanent. Like Phil, we’re battling the feeling that no matter what we do, nothing will change.
However, being stuck in a moment you want to leave behind is only Groundhog Day’s setup, not its message. In a world where our individual actions don’t seem to change anything, Groundhog Day reminds me why helping others still matters.
When we meet Phil, he’s whining about making the annual trip from his station in Pittsburgh to Punxsutawney, Pa., to cover the groundhog festival. The trip is beneath him, he thinks. When a snowstorm strands Phil and the news team in Punxsutawney overnight, it seems like the ultimate insult — until Phil wakes up the next day and discovers he’s reliving events all over again. And again.
Over the past few days on Twitter, NBC’s Ann Curry has almost single handedly popularized #26Acts, an initiative asking people to do 26 acts of kindness in honor of the 26 victims of the Newtown, Conn. shooting.
In line with Momma T’s famous quote, “ We cannot do great things on this earth. We can only do small things with great love,” Curry says that #26Acts originated with a simple principle in mind: “If you do good, you’ll feel good.”
But why does everyone have to Tweet about paying it forward? That’s a legitimate criticism and one that many a Twitter user have struggled with. As one person puts it, “While I get the intent of #26Acts fully, tweeting acts of kindness sometimes comes off as patting one's own back. Conundrum.”
Indeed. But even if these acts of kindness are sensationalized and socialized, they’re still encouraging people to do good — albeit in a potentially imperfect way.
So, in honor of those honoring those taken so suddenly, here are some of the most heartwarming #26Acts of kindness I’ve seen so far.