The holiday's founder, Julie Thompson, noticed that more often than she liked, she was in her own little world (or lala-land, as I call it) oblivious to the people around her and how her actions impacted them. The more she thought about this, she realized the "problem" was fairly universal and widespread. Gone were the days of common courtesy and politeness being the rule rather than the exception. Her thinking is that people aren't actively choosing to be discourteous or even rude but they also are not choosing to be kind and generous (with their time, energy, etc.). Without conscious effort, self will always take over and we exhibit behavior that looks like we think we are more important than someone else… like cutting across several lanes of traffic so we don't miss our turn… or not holding the door open for the person behind you … or not saying thank you if someone does open that door for you.
Ms. Thompson decided to actively look for ways to "inconvenience" herself, to put someone else ahead of her. One of her first acts was moving some stray shopping carts that were blocking cars in a crowded parking lot. She had to walk a few parking spaces out of her way to move carts that were not in her way but she said that the smile on the driver's face when he realized he did not have to get out of his car and move the carts was heartwarming.
Does this sound a bit like random acts of kindness? Or the Boy/Girl Scout slogan - "Do a good turn daily." It did to me, too - at first. But Ms. Thompson's intention was not just to do something nice once a day or randomly but to be very intentional about how she lives her life and encourages others to live theirs. I think it's more like the Golden Rule - "Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you." Or as Jesus said in Matthew 7:12, "Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets." (NLT) When Jesus said "others," he meant everyone - your family, your friends, your enemies, those who are nice to you and those who are not. And he did not add a time quantifier like "daily" or "once a year" - he just said "do."
The Inconvenience Yourself website has stories to encourage you and lists of ideas to get you started. Maybe you could tell the child in your life a fairy tale instead of checking out Facebook once again. Or share your bag of pistachios with a stranger. Imagine what could happen if we celebrated "Inconvenience Yourself Day" every day!
Oh, and in case you are interested, tomorrow is National Chili Day.
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