I woke up a couple mornings ago, left my dorm room, and began my routine walk to my class. On my route, as I was walking up the stairs to the bridge to get to the other side of campus, I stumbled across something very beautiful--it was a little yellow Post-It with the words "Be Kind" on it on the window. I stared at it for a couple of seconds as it immediately caught my attention and instantly brought a smile to my face. I thought, "What a nice gesture. I absolutely love that someone put this here."
At first I thought that was the only one. But later on throughout my day, I started seeing these Post-Its everywhere on campus. They were in the main unispan bridge, in the bathrooms, on many of the doors, many of the windows, etc. I realized this wasn't just something someone placed randomly in the bridge on my way to class. This was some sort of movement and positivity project that someone, or a group of people, decided to do.
Besides the one that said, "Be Kind," there were many other beautiful sayings, such as "You are AMAZING," "Equality for Women," "Be Nicer!" and "Recycle whenever you can" among countless others. They range from words and phrases about being kind to yourself, others, the environment, etc. A lot of them also address many social justice issues, such as the "Equality for Women" one.
Personally, I am so inspired by this action. I think these positivity Post-Its are a wonderful idea. I've seen this concept about a Post-It positivity project on the internet before, where people go to random public locations and post them with kind sayings, words, and phrases to bring joy and inspiration to any stranger who might read them. It's so cool to see people going out of their way to spread kindness, compassion, awareness, love, and positivity everywhere on campus. I know that reading some of these not only made me smile and made my day, but it also motivated me to spread kindness and positivity to others.
Not everyone was so happy and supportive with these Post-Its as I am. Actually, some people reacted quite negatively to them. As I was walking back from class, I overheard this guy complaining about them saying something along the lines of "What's with all these fucking stupid Post-Its?!" I was quite disheartened and slightly angry at his negative comment and hateful reaction to this beautiful act of love. It saddens me that people are annoyed by this simple but kind gesture. After all, it's not like these Post-Its had hateful, nasty, negative, crude, and rude comments on them. Do some people have a problem with spreading positivity, kindness, and joy? Clearly they do, and I think that is truly a shame.
Regardless of these few people who reacted negatively to them, I know that there are many others on campus like me who absolutely love this positivity movement. It has brought inspiration, encouragement, and smiles to a plethora of people on campus, myself included. I hope that they will serve as a beacon of light for people to keep this message of love going and further prompt others to do little random acts of kindness and good deeds because a lot of the times it is the small things in life that can ultimately make a big difference.