One good turn deserves another. Karma. The Golden Rule. Pay it forward. All of these concepts are closely related to a basic idea: once an individual does something good or positive, they put out positive energy into the world that will spread like wildfire. Many people realize  the principle of pay it forward by means of the movie and/or book of the same name. But the thought of paying it forward has been around much longer.

When you pay it forward, you are passing on a good deed. For example, if somebody babysits your kids cost-free, they may tell you as an alternative of paying them, you should give back to society and “pay it forward” by babysitting someone else’s children for free. It is all about doing anything good and the recipient of that kind act doing anything nice for someone else. These nice acts then distribute around the neighbourhood, around the city, around the state…

Some say Jesus was the originator of the pay it forward idea. According to the Bible, He showed that acts of kindness and unselfishness might resound to huge numbers of people. Christ taught that life is reciprocal in that we obtain what we have given to others. More recently, Benjamin Franklin wrote about the concept in a letter in 1784. In her 1916 book, In the GARDEN of Delight, Lily Hardy Hammond wrote, “You don’t pay love back; you pay it forward.”

Catherine Ryan Hyde wrote the book Pay It Forward in 2000 and in no way expected to be launching a social movement. But that is precisely what happened. In the book and movie, a seventh grade social studies instructor gives his class a project to devise a strategy which could change the world. One student comes up with the strategy of pay it forward in which he will perform 3 acts of kindness. The recipients are then told to also perform three charitable acts that leads to the movement increasing exponentially.

Schools around the globe have picked up on this concept and used it to make their students a lot more socially aware. For instance, students at the University of Minnesota began a group termed Students Today Leaders Forever. The members of this group spend their springbreaks “giving back” by completing community service projects with the notion that recipients pay it forward. Students at Syracuse University and the University of Toledo embarked on equivalent projects. April 29, 2010 was announced International Pay It Forward Day on which individuals were inspired to perform good deeds with the expectation of the recipient paying it forward.

“Hug It Forward” is movement that takes the pay it forward concept and applies it to free hugs. It’s so easy to give a hug, yet so powerfull. A hug can very easily be paid forward and can spread exponentially so that very soon absolutely everyone in the world has got a hug! On this web site you can now Track Your Hugs on a Google Map so you can see how they spread! What’s more, for every hug you track, Hug It Forward’s sponsors will donate $1 to Bottle School projects in Guatemala!

Leave a Comment