paying it forward

About a month ago, a student I had while TAing in grad school wrote an email to me. She said she'd been discussing TAs with a friend of hers, and wanted to let me know that she remembered me as one who had done a good job. She made my week.

Today, at a coffee shop in my hometown, I passed a teacher I remembered from my grade school days. It wasn't a teacher I'd ever had, but she had made a big difference in my brother's childhood and, I think, in the way he grew up into a dedicated, caring man. I smiled as I passed her but I didn't stop to say hi - I could see she didn't recognize me. But then, a few steps out the door, I turned around. I went back in the room and told her who I was and that I wanted to say thanks for a good job on behalf of my brother.

In the last week, teachers in my state - Wisconsin - have been battling major changes to their union rights, pension plans, and health care costs proposed by our new governor. It turned out this teacher had been conversing with her friends about how the government didn't care about teachers. Hopefully I did my little part to remind her that kids do.

PC is on the move

My friend Jaclyn, wrote me from Botswana telling me her thoughts of PC and related some things she was allready doing and promised to forward new activities she comes up with. She was visited by her boyfriend reciently and spoke to him about PC. He also saw it as a good thing and went back to Vanawatu in the South Pacific with the mentality of being more conscious about these type of actions. He wrote me a while ago and said that not only is he persuing PC more activly now but that he also shared the idea with a friend of his who lives in Austrilia. Man we are starting to span the globe. And it is inspiring to me to hear of people who hear about PC and do more then just say "well thats a nice idea." Pretty cool stuff.

PC Goes Global!

At 6:00 am yesterday, the wife and I were just struggling to get our bags out of the overhead compartments of our plane--newly landed in London. After a 6-hour flight during which we spoke rarely to other people around us, suddenly a young man about my age greeted us and made inquiries why we were visiting London. As it turns out, he is a young composer from the area, returning home after spending the holidays with his fiance's family in Kansas. Small world, right?

We exchanged some of the usual pleasantries and came to the fact that we had no permanent place to live in town. As we walked to the border agency lines, he invited us, two complete strangers in a strange land, to lunch with him and his fiance over the weekend so he could give us some pointers about living in London. We're meeting them tomorrow near our hotel.

A Glimpse of Peace Culture

It is pretty safe to say that interactions between other people and ourselves affect our disposition. I also venture to assume that you, at least once in your life, have had a brief and simple interaction with another person that “made your day.” That person did something small that put a smile on your face or made you laugh or just made you feel good. These interactions are the core of what Peace Culture (PC) is. Of course these instances have been occurring long before PC was thought up. The only difference is that we seek out and create these situations. In essence, Peace Culture is being in the business of making someone’s day.
I’ve noticed that those of us who engage in PC treat the name Peace Culture like a verb. We do this because the whole point is to positively affect someone’s mood through your action. At the time of this writing people have been doing PC for about four years now. It has spread from its roots in the Midwest to a few other pockets around the US. These people who are doing PC could be seen brainstorming ways to make their neighbor smile before they go to work. Or a group of guys long-boarding around looking for the chance to lend a hand to people doing yard work. Or pulling their car over to help a kid put the chain back on her bike. It is somewhat difficult to plan out ways to effect people in this way at first or see every opportunity to do so, but after a while of exercising one’s creativity and learning from others doing PC the ideas with real potential are bound to surface. Doing something to intentionally make someone else feel good puts you on such a high that you begin to get hungry for it.
From early on we observed that PC does not end with the initial act but has a ripple-effect. This is because when you make someone smile their mood improves and the next person they interact with gets that smile too. And that is why we call it Peace Culture, because through one act we often set off a chain reaction putting untraceable amounts of people in better moods and making their days. Through our simple, yet very intentional, actions we change the way people deal with each other and thus create a more Peaceful Culture.
Although the ripple effect is often hard to observe occasionally the process can be glimpsed. In one such case I had stopped by a coffee shop where my friend Miranda worked only to find that she was not there that day. Her coworker, who I had previously met, was however and after taking my order she gave me a free cup of coffee. Now before I had engaged in PC I would have very genuinely thanked her and then left feeling great. However, this time I took a moment and sat down to think up a way to return the favor and make this woman’s day. After a few moments of thought I wrote down the following quote on a napkin.

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, a free cup of coffee, or the smallest act of caring…all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

I put it in her hand as I walked out of the door and thanked her again. I did not hear anything about the note for a long time and had no idea if she even read it or just thought I was giving her a napkin. Then some four months later my friend Miranda remembered the incident and recounted to me how her coworker had raved the next day about how nice of guy I was and how great that napkin had made her feel. Miranda also got exited when she heard this and as she is herself involved in PC she could see first hand the impact it on her coworker. When she told me about this we were driving at night on a road trip and got exited all over again about the story. So much so that we woke up our two sleeping friends in the back seat, who are also regular participants in PC, and told them the story.
We have told a quite a few people about PC and the number of those who are doing it is increasing. Many times people become inspired and their day is made just by hearing others or myself talk about what PC is and what we are currently doing. For this reason I have decided to write a book on Peace Culture and hopefully expose more people to what has become one of the greatest things I’ve ever been involved with. We have also created this blog and asked you to contribute to it because we believe you to be a person who would appreciate it for what it is and perhaps wish to participate.
–please feel free to pass this on to anyone you feel might be interested. Soon after you are invited to this blog you will be made an administrator which will allow you to add people you feel would be interested in PC. Please respect what PC is and only invite individules who will do likewise.--


PS: If you wish to be a contributor please comment on any post stating your desire and we will gladly make you a contributor.

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"Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. And however undramatic the pursuit of peace, the pursuit must go on."
--President John F. Kennedy

Coffee shop notes.

~From P.R.~

I was sitting in a coffee shop just the other day and found myself watching a young woman from across the room. She was quite obviously stressed about something. She appeared to be studying, but every few seconds would run a hand through her hair or stare blankly ahead. A slightly anguished look on her face. I could tell that she was upset but about what I did not know. I also had no idea who she was, but I decided to take a chance and reach out anyways.
I walked over to her table as I was leaving and stood in front of her. Noticing my presence she glanced up and just as she looked me in the eye I extended a note and she took it in what seemed a reflex. I turned and walked out the door before she could react or say anything.
The note said something to the affect of, “I don’t know you, but I do know that something has got you down. I hope that whatever it is clears up for you sooner rather then later and that you can end this day in a good place.”
I smiled to myself as I left the shop knowing that she was sitting behind me assuming I had left her my number in attempts to pick her up. As I walked down the street to my car my wonderings of how she would take the message, was she offended or would she even read it at all faded into a rush of adrenalin and excitement over what had just happened. The feeling in my chest was so intense I had to laugh just to give it a release.
There I was laughing my brains out sitting alone in my car over a note written to a woman I did not know who could have certainly tossed it into the nearest trash bin without reading it at all. Just as I was about to pull out after my laughter subdued a bit a man walked in front of my car. We locked eyes for a moment and recognized each other. It way my friend Taylor. He came to my window and I rolled it down with a bit of laughter still in my chest and a big dumb grin on my face.
He said that he was excited to have run into me and I must say I was also, especially since I was in such a excessively cheerful mood. We had a short delightful conversation which ended with him saying that he always has an epiphany every time he runs into me and he was going to go off to search for it. As he walked away from my vehicle I marveled at how much my good mood was visibly transferred into this man now joyfully walking up the street.

Peace Culture

This blog isn't really a product of one mind--or even an original idea, for that matter--but is rather a conglomerated attempt to encourage the everyday and even mundane practice of goodwill and conscientious, intentional thoughtfulness toward our fellow human beings. It (the blog, not the idea) came about after one of those discussions that happen between friends who only get to see each other once in a great while and just have to hash out all of the big thoughts that have been plaguing them in the intervening absences.

When certain things, however small, improve the overall quality of a person's life, there is a ripple that exists far beyond what they may be aware of. That ripple can extend that joy or contentment to many other people, for as long as that event and that memory are present to at least one person. Peacefulness ought to be (and can be) at it's very essence a practical stimulus--think "Pay it Forward."

Our goal, for the time being and in this medium, is simply to relate and present those moments as they occur--to you, to me, to whomever can share them and extend the ripple of the joy they created. We hope you enjoy.