Play It Forward

You got the science bit on Tikkun Olam, ‘repairing the world’, last week and now it’s time for the fun part – playing it forward. Random acts of kindness have been around for a while now, immortalised in celluloid in the film Pay It Forward, but now entrepreneurs are finding new ways to formalise the process and make it easier to join with others for the full internet-savvy virtual experience.

In Canada, there’s a new site in beta called http://www.akoha.com/, where you can buy a set of cards with missions on them, like ‘buy someone a cup of coffee’ or ‘donate an hour of your time’ or ‘give someone a book’ and then start handing out those missions to your friends. As the mission is completed, you and your friends get karma points and the cards stay in play, as the recipients are encouraged to play it forward to others. As they do, they can blog about how they’ve done it, so you can see the entire history of a single card and who it’s affected on the Akoha site. It’s a genius idea that’s still in its early stages of development, but it concretises a move towards greater compassion for others, particularly at a time when we all realise we’re in the same boat.

On this side of the pond, Danny Wallace started http://www.join-me.co.uk/ to create a karma army some five years ago, with the intention of creating a network of people to give random acts of kindness. Now a worldwide phenomenon with thousands of members, it promotes where members are encouraged to do good deeds on Fridays – as well as any other day of the week.

ARK clothing is another socialpreneur enterprise, set up by an 18-year old Irish guy who got the idea to create clothing with acts of random kindness (hence ARK) written in to them. Beyond the small acts which wearers are asked to perform each time they use the clothing, ARK also encourages larger acts of kindness in communities and will consider supporting them financially too through a profit-related fund.

This week, become part of this new groundswell of compassion and do something spontaneous and kind. Here are the fabulous rules:

· Do something nice for yourself. It doesn’t happen that often.
· Surprise someone you love with something that doesn’t cost money – time, kisses and recycling gifts are all permitted.
· Shock someone you don’t know at all with a small act of thoughtfulness – pass on a ticket you can’t use, share some food at lunchtime, buy a coffee for someone sitting on their own, chat with someone who looks like they could use a little support.

Be creative. Be kind. Play it forward.

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