Gratitude is a powerful force!  It makes you feel good to be of service to others and it can pull you out of a serious funk when you see someone else light up with a smile. I am seeing more and more people living this way and this morning I saw a really great post on facebook about paying it forward.  Here is a copy of the post:

  “To start this year off in a loving way, I’m participating in this ‘pay-it-forward’ initiative. The first five people who comment on this status with ‘I’m in’, will receive a surprise from me at some point in this calendar year, anything from a book, a ticket, a visit, something homegrown or made, a postcard, absolutely any surprise! There will be no warning and it will happen when the mood comes over me and I find something that I believe would suit you and make you happy. These five people must make the same offer on their Facebook status and distribute their own joy. Simply copy this text onto your profile (don’t share) so we form a web of connection and kindness. Let’s do more nice and loving things for each other in 2020, without any reason other than to make each other smile and to show that we think of each other. Here’s to a more enjoyable more friendly and love filled year.

I posted it on my facebook page and I am waiting to see the five awesome people I get to pay it forward to.

Later in the day, I was reading an issue of Success Magazine and I found an amazing article about a woman named Joan Zawoiski Lewis, who found out she was dying of pancreatic cancer.  She told family and friends: “Don’t make a fuss.  Just do something nice for somebody else.  Then tell me about it.”

 Stories began popping up of people grocery shopping for people without enough food to eat, someone gave an elderly woman on the street money, someone else cleaned trails in a state park in Vermont in her honor.

Joan’s prognosis of having weeks to live after her stage 4 pancreatic cancer spread to her liver changed to months and then over a year.  She began crossing things off her bucket list.  Joan went on a hot air balloon ride, went to NYC and stayed at the Waldorf Astoria and went to a taping of ABC’s  show “The View”.

 Joan has since passed, but her legacy still lives on.  Check out the full article in Success Magazine and her facebook page Joannie from Pringle, people are still doing good deeds.

I hope this influences you to pay it forward.

Lisa