Have you ever watched the movie Pay it Forward? I watched it years ago and many times since, it’s theme has stuck with me through all the years since its release in 2000. The concept is an easy one, one we can all follow and some even do without realising it.
The concept that stuck? … paying it forward – you see someone in need and you give them something you have to help them out, doesn’t need to be big or small, that person in turn does it for another and so the web of kindness grows. Imagine if everyone started to do this just how big it could get, how much kindess could be spread around the world continually… This book & movie started as fiction but now has been built into a world wide movement and a non-profit organisation.
In the movie, Reuben St. Clair, the teacher and protagonist in the book “Pay It Forward,” starts a movement with this voluntary, extra-credit assignment: THINK OF AN IDEA FOR WORLD CHANGE, AND PUT IT INTO ACTION. Trevor, the 12-year-old hero of “Pay It Forward,” thinks of quite an idea. He describes it to his mother and teacher this way: “You see, I do something real good for three people. And then when they ask how they can pay it back, I say they have to Pay It Forward. To three more people. Each. So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven.” He turned on the calculator, punched in a few numbers. “Then it sort of spreads out, see. To eighty-one. Then two hundred forty-three. Then seven hundred twenty-nine. Then two thousand, one hundred eighty-seven. See how big it gets?”
My challenge to you is to pay it forward, lets continue this movement its one of the good ones that affect young and old, rich and poor…
If you want to read this incredible book it is by Catherine Ryan Hyde
More information on the movie Pay It Forward
psychscribe
•16 years ago
Sanity, I LOVED that movie and concept. What is the worldwide organization that you’re referring to?
iamvisheshur
•16 years ago
haven’t seen it…shld get it and watch…yes…wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing? but someone will break the thread….
SanityFound
•16 years ago
Hi Psychscribe, there are two both inter-linked… They are as follows:
Pay It Forward Foundation
Pay It Forward Movement
Both are pretty much the same, the latter is more newsletters, stories, etc
SanityFound
•16 years ago
iamvisheshur, you definitely have to see this one, makes you think and inspires you. If someone breaks the link the onus is on them not you, perhaps someone else will do them another good deed and they will then pay it forward far more and with more heart.
amberfireinus
•16 years ago
I have been doing that every single day of my life since I was 5 years old when a stranger helped my mother and I on a lonely road in the middle of the night. I blogged about this experience. My entire family does this. Its our family motto. I love this.. thank you!
http://amberfireinus.wordpress.com/2007/12/25/the-spirit-of-pass-it-on/
iamvisheshur
•16 years ago
truth is always 🙂 its proved again 🙂
SanityFound
•16 years ago
Yes I remember now that post you did, loved it when I read it – my mother and I have done the same since I was about the same age, so much kindness was given to us that we both vowed to help others in the same way and if we could more so… Glad you liked 🙂
PS I see by my comment on your post that I was talking about Pay it forward then already, feel bad, life got in the way of this post 🙁
SanityFound
•16 years ago
indeed as always iamvisheshur 🙂
deepsm25
•16 years ago
hmmm…I need to get a hold of this movie..It would be so nice to see a kindness movement going so strongly forward.
SanityFound
•16 years ago
it’s already in action you just have to hop along for the ride .. def get hold of the movie guaranteed you will watch it min 3 times back to back and then still want to watch it again!
Today I made a grown man cry « SanityFound’s Rambling’s
•16 years ago
[…] If you want to read more on this topic head over to Amberfireinus post titled The Gift of Charity is Personal or my previous post The Pyramid Scheme I really Like […]