Monday, January 20, 2014

NF Reading Response: Drive-Through Generosity

Do you ever feel that the sanity and kindness of the world is crumbling ever so slowly? Well rest assured, because nice people are letting others see that the world is not all evil and sad. In the magazine, Upfront, I read the article Drive-Through Generosity (page 3), and was mesmerized by what I learned. According to the text, generosity spreads like wildfire. 

The article states that customers in drive-throughs all across the U.S. are paying for the next customer's burger, and people are calling this act "paying it forward". People got this name from "the 1999 best-selling novel of that name" (3). When one person does it, it catches on like a trend in middle school! The article even states, "In 2012, 228 consecutive cars paid it forward at a Tim Hortons in Manitoba, Canada; last spring, 67 cars in a row did it at Chick-fil-A in Houston" (3). These facts astonished me. I thought it was amazing how kind so many people can be, but what I found astonishing was how such a little thing can bring out the generosity of so many people, and possibly change their outlook on life. This can happen in the sense that they notice that there are people out there that are willing to do good things for complete strangers, and when they see this, they too can do a good deed. This is called “paying it forward”. As a woman from St. Pauls, North Carolina, puts it; “It’s about ‘letting people see… there are nice people out there and maybe we can turn it around” (3). This quote puts my thoughts perfectly into words.

In conclusion, generosity plays an important role in the well being of humanity. This article also shows how much the little things matter. Baby steps, as they say. In order to achieve the spectacular goal of generosity and kindness in all humans, one must start out small, so others can follow in their footsteps. If everyone does little things, greater work can be done. A lot of small achievements is better than very few large achievements.

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