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Kees Paap said in part:

>
> I like to ask you the following. It is maybe a little unexpected and for
> some of you too difficult to do or  to much effort. If so you may forget
> this E-mail or snail-mail.
>
> What is my appeal to you? I ask you to spend only two times in the next
two
> months, to give  joy to some-one.
> IT GOES FAST !
> I started this "make some-one happy action" on October 12, 1998. I  sent
> this letter to about 2000 people spread over 75 countries.
>
> Give it a try, don't think that it won't work, because it is working,
NOW.
> It has started all over the world. Giving happiness means feeling
happiness.
>
> Be happy,
>
> Kees Paap

What a great idea.  I may modify my response by NOT actually
sending/delivering the letter to the individuals I give joy to but I do try
to be kind and happy in my daily contacts with people in my life.  That
includes the students I tutor, the clerk at the store, the child standing
w/his parent in the checkout line, the elderly lady trying to reach the too
tall shelf in the discount store.  I do this because when I treat these
same people shabbily and with rudeness, I reap just what I sow.  They in
turn treat me and the rest of the people they come in contact that day just
as they were treated.

No, I'm not "goody two shoes" or "Pollyanna".  I, too, am short, unkind,
nasty to others when I feel bad, have had disappointments, etc.  But other
than immediate satisfaction of cutting someone to the quick because the
same has happened to me, I find that courtesy and kindness in dealing
w/others is far more productive than whatever mean, cruel, sarcastic remark
I had thought to say, but decided NOT to utter.  Yes, it takes self
restraint and thinking before I speak, and as a parent, often biting my
already shortened tongue.  But it is certainly worth striving for this
being kinder in our unkind world.

Jeanette Fuhr 48/11mos.
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