I was answering one of the comments to a certain post when I realized how long it was and thought that it needed a post in itself.

This is my answer to the comment of wonderin to the post “It Pays to be Kind.”

wonderin: I appreciate all of u are doing kindness but i don’t [sic] think shouting abt it to everyone is just a little too much. destroying the sense of it all.

KG: Hi wonderin! First, I would like to thank you for dropping by my site. Second, yes, I agree that, normally, kind deeds are not for “shouting out.” It is one of those things where actions speak louder than words. In fact, in kindness, no words need to be spoken. It is carried out, it is felt. That’s where the power of kindness lies.

However, allow me to inform you that we write on acts of kindness rarely. In fact, most of us have never written about an act of kindness. At the most, some would have “told” of their kindness indirectly in the stories they tell. In my post “My Favorite 2008 Christmas Moment,” to which I refer in this post, I merely share the joy and happiness I felt when I was able to help a person and make that person happy. I have also done a post on random acts of kindness, but I wrote on its benefits.

These posts on were put up in response to the birthday giveaway of witsandnuts, who asked  us to write on the times we made other people happy. I thought of it as a brilliant idea. I do not know what the purpose of wits was, but I believe, and I’m sure she would agree with me, that the mere purpose of it was to inspire, to “motivate” people to be kind to others and give them the idea that making others happy is good for one’s soul.

Keeping your kind deeds to yourself is indeed the right and best thing to do. But there are times we need to get the word out. I cannot count the times I’ve been moved by stories on kindness in Chicken Soup for the Soul, which, I must admit, has contributed a lot to my advocacy on random acts of kindness.

Please be comforted by the fact that I’ve known most of these bloggers for some time now. They have kind hearts with only the sincerest intentions. And rest assured that our posts on kindness and making others happy are not merely to shout, as you have pointed out, to the world our kind deeds; not to shout, “Look at me. I’m kind. I made this person happy.” We wrote on these experiences to inspire. We are no politicians; we had nothing to gain by sharing these stories to each other. It was as simple as that, to inspire each other and other people. And for that alone, I think we did the right thing.

I hope you won’t think badly of me when I disagree with you that we “destroyed the sense of it all.” On the contrary, although I am not speaking for everyone who joined the contest or read the posts, we felt more compelled to be kind. These inspiring stories are motivations for us to make others happy and to treat others with kindness. And on another side, we take our joy in the idea that someone out there was inspired by our stories and had made the move to make another human being happy. And that, I think, is the sense of it all.