Kindness studies sound heart-warming, but are the results relevant to real life? To find out, I took on Lyubomirsky's challenge, carrying out several acts of kindness in one day. I enlisted my friend Roshni, a born skeptic, to do the same.
I kicked off my day by writing a long letter to my middle-school French teacher. Though I haven't spoken to her in a decade, I count her among my most inspiring role models, so I told her what she's meant to me and gave her a run-down on some of my old classmates' exploits. Penning the letter lifted my cynical spirits, especially since I'd long wanted to do it. However, feeding a vending machine so the next person would get a free snack just left me cold. Just as Jonathan Haidt predicted, the acts that gave me most satisfaction involved relationship-building and the possibility of reciprocation.
Roshni had a slightly different take. One of her favorite tasks was tossing treats to appreciative dogs tied to parking meters ("They were so happy and sweet!"). Donating her brunch leftovers to a group of Haight Street hippies didn't give her the same happiness boost, since they expressed little gratitude and made suggestive comments instead. "Maybe I'm shallow," she says, "but I liked getting recognition for my random acts, and the recognition I got was proportional to how happy they made me feel."
