Paying it Forward

A friend and I were having a discussion the other day, and we both decided that we really want to become very wealthy and then use that wealth to help people in small ways. I don't want to donate a large sum to charity. That's way too easy! I want to have some fun with it. Some possible examples we came up with include:

**Pay for someone who is in line behind you, either at the movies or at a drive-through.

**Put a large wad of money in the collection at church.

**Leave a VERY generuous tip.

**Mail an anonymous letter with some cash inside to a random address in the phone book.

**Hand out free tokens at an arcade.

**Go to an auction and by a crazy item for way above it's worth.

**Buy everyone a drink in the bar. (Just one, so as not to promote alcoholism)

**Purchase coffee and doughnuts and have them anonymously sent to a police station.

**Pay for everyone's gas who pulls up to a gas pump for a certain time frame.

**Pay a hundred people's toll at a toll booth.

See the possibilites are endless! And in these ways you are able to bring a smile to someone's face... at least for a little while. And just imagine how many people you could touch with these small deeds.

Then, we also thought, you could include a business card with every deed you do, that simply read:

Pay it forward.

(And include this card when you do.)

And then how crazy/ironic would it be when one afternoon after a long, crappy day at work you go to your vehicle, (in which you parked in front of a fire hydrant, because you were late for work that morning) just to see a pre-paid parking ticket and that very same business card tucked under your windshield.

That would be enough to make me smile for an entire week. And then of course you could start the circle all over again by sending a birthday card to every person whose birthday is listed in the newspaper. How fun would that be?