I gave my pants away.

But is it wrong to talk publicly about good deeds?

If you’d rather listen, click on the video. Or scroll down to read.

Should charity be done quietly and anonymously?

Does it count if you do something good to make yourself look good? Is there such thing as true altruism!?!?

I don’t really care why people do good. I just want more good in the world. I think when people are visibly kind and share their charity — it is EXTRA GOOD because it inspires. We need more examples around us of kindness so that we have role models of positive behavior.

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Two exceptions:

1) “Corporate Greenwashing.” Good deeds that mask wrongdoing. Like an Exxon commercial that shows them cleaning up a beach. Hoping that we forget that the other 99% of their efforts are making the planet sicker.

2) “Kindness Porn” Exploiting a person who is down on their luck by forcing them to be subject matter for social media content that shows off your generosity.
Some people are happy to be in a video or say thank you. But not everyone. And public gratitude should never be a requirement for receiving help. (Nor should listening to religious dogma, IMHO.)

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Now, look… if you want to be hush-hush about the good you do, that is awesome and impressive. Doing kind acts anonymously is a wonderful exercise and practice.

But if a hungry person gets a meal, it doesn’t matter to them if afterwards I tweet, “Just bought someone dinner.”

Why is it important?

We need more visibility of kind acts! We need more role-modeling of generosity and compassion.
Culturally, we glorify greed. We know the names of people who make billions — but rarely know about the charitable heroes.

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Have you heard about those “Pay for the person behind you” chains that happen at toll booths or Starbucks drive-throughs?

More often than not, the recipient pays for the NEXT person. And the kindness chains can continue for hours.

Why? Buying someone else’s coffee doesn’t usually occur to most people. But when you witness it happening, you realize that gifting is always an option. You realize that something so simple can have a massive emotional effect. Why not???

Everyone who has had their coffee paid for by a stranger remembers that experience for a long, long time. And anyone who has bought a random coffee for someone realizes that it is rarely possible to spend that same amount of money on oneself and feel as good.

It is a bummer that kindness to strangers is so rare that we will talk about it for months. But the more times we hear about people doing it, the more we are apt to do it ourselves. As random kindness becomes commonplace we will think of doing it much more often.

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12 years ago, when I started doing 1st Saturdays with Jason, he wanted to keep it quiet. He preferred to do good deeds anonymously and avoid any temptations of pride. I was unwilling to keep it private. I share everything online, so there was no way I was going be silent about our amazing experience.

As soon as I posted about it on Facebook, local friends asked if they could join us next time. (Note: I did not mention Jason’s name in my post.) Quickly we had 10, then 20, then 50 volunteers joining us each month. We had mountains of donated clothes to give away and faraway friends sent us money to buy supplies.

By being vocal about our charity, we were able to help many more people. Not only did having extra resources allow us to gift to more people in need, but we have been able to show 1000+ volunteers how good it feels to do good.

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Frequently I meet people through 1st Saturdays that are exceptionally inspiring. Like when 6 year old Ray returned with his family for another month of volunteering. He brought with him all the birthday money he received the week before. He had told his friends that instead of presents, he would prefer money that he could then give away to the homeless.

Damn. I was never that nice as a kid. I’m still not that nice.

I like to take care of myself, first…and then do good. I don’t sacrifice much.

Just knowing that Ray did that was inspiring. It stretched my awareness of the ways we can be kind.

And then last month, I saw Ray’s father, Will, listen intently to a homeless man tell his tale of misfortune. The nights were getting cold and the man needed a coat. Sadly, we had run out of clothing that would fit the man. Will ran to his car, grabbed *his* coat, and gave it to the man. Not an extra coat, but the coat he wears every day.

Inspiring, f’n family.

Neither Ray nor Will is posting on social media about their kind acts. That isn’t why they did them.

But I can tell you that I was permanently impacted by both of those acts.

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I like to do good deeds. I like to gift. But I do so from a place of abundance. My belly is always full when I am giving away food. I give away my old clothes when I have purchased new things to replace them.

I’m nice. But I’m not *that* nice.

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This weekend, at our 1st Saturdays gifting event for people in need, I was approached by a man who asked if we had any pants. He was an older asian man. He looked to be about 65, but the years wear hard on people who have no homes. He was missing an eye and had a face covered with sparse, scraggly white hair. I had to break the news that we had started the day with few mens clothes and there were no more pants. Through broken English he explained that he had come to this event solely for the purpose of finding new pants. He was visibly disappointed.

I looked down to his extremely torn up jeans. They looked like something I might have made in high school when trying to look like Jon Bon Jovi or the singer of RATT. They had no less than 50 horizontal rips on each leg. Even if you called them “pants,” they fulfilled none of the duties that a pair of pants should.

After a brief conversation, I learned that we wore the same size pants.

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I grabbed an extra large pair of boys shorts and changed into them next to my car. I handed my jeans to the shocked, but grateful, man.

I was able to stretch into a level of generosity (giving away something I like) because it would bring more joy to someone else. It felt good.

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Later, Will noticed that I was wearing his son Ray’s donated shorts!! (Ray is now a High School Junior.) I told Will my story and he smiled through his mask. Then he shared that he was moved by a man’s story who was released, homeless, from the hospital with no shoes. I looked down and saw that Will was shoeless, standing on the concrete in his socks.

Inspiring f’n family.

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I’m not sure what the future will bring… but I know that this is the kind of person I want to be.

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Have a story of generosity or kindness? Please REPLY and tell me!

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P.S. You can join us every first Saturday! We organize on Facebook. Next event is Saturday, Feb. 5th.

And you should know that a portion of my Patreon funds goes towards gifts for people experiencing homeless. So thank YOU!

If you are not in San Diego, you can donate funds towards care packs (new socks, toiletries, snacks) here.