I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of “story”. And living a good life story. Creating a life story. I was first introduced to the idea of life as a story by Donald Miller in his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
Since then I have been following Miller’s blog and get e-mails from him every once in a while. That kinda makes it sound like we’re friends. 🙂 I subscribe to his blog. But still.
The last e-mail I received really stood out to me and I didn’t want to forget it. And it’s something I’d like my children to read one day, so I’m including parts of it in this post. If there’s ONE thing I want to teach my children, it’s to be kind. Always. And to everyone.
“Bill Murray is making a name for himself…Other than the obvious that he’s a great actor, here’s his secret: He’s MEMORABLY KIND.
By memorably kind, I mean he does more than open doors or lend you his umbrella. He’s quite creative about his kindness, actually.”
He goes on to describe a story about Bill Murray on an elevator in a hotel when a guy got on and recognized him. The man told Murray he was a fan. Bill nodded and smiled. The fan walked “sheepishly out of the elevator”. When they got to the entrance, the fan went one way, Murray went the other way.
“Then, suddenly, Bill Murray turned, ran toward the man and tackled him into a shrub. He sat up, pointed his finger at the man and said Your friends will never believe this happened!
There are more stories…Once when asked for an autograph, Murray refused. But he did spend the better part of the rest of the day with the young fan shooting a scene on the guys I-phone that he could his friends and post on Facebook.
And there’s more. He tweeted he was in a certain city and if anybody was throwing a party he wanted to come. He then made appearances at several parties that night.
Why is Murray so cherished as an actor and a man? In my opinion, it’s because he’s creatively kind.”
This is the part of the e-mail that really stood out to me:
“What being memorably kind is about is showing the world there’s goodness in it, there’s kindness and grace. I’ve a friend who says we are supposed to go around putting little feathers of kindness on the internal scale people use to measure good vs evil.“
That good vs evil scale could use as much kindness as we can give it. Collectively, we tip the scale towards the good side instead of the evil.
Don’t just be kind, be memorably kind. I love that.
