“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like there’s nobody listening, and live like it’s heaven on earth,” which is a quote from William Purkey, who began his career as a public-school teacher. Small acts of kindness, like leaving a meal for a homeless person or paying off a stranger’s layaway balance at Target, start trends with more people getting in on the act, because they are such feel good stories. The benefactors are happy to have done a good deed and the recipients are pleased to have been given a small but meaningful helping hand. According to James Fowler, a professor at UC San Diego, his studies have found that recipients of kindness want to keep paying it forward and a single act of kindness inspires more acts of generosity, which now has a scientific name for this chain of altruism known as “upstream reciprocity”. So, the next time you drop a quarter into an expired parking meter, there is a good chance the recipient of that small act of kindness will be inspired to do a kind act for someone else, and so on and on. Fowler also says that since humans often mimic behavior they see in the media, like generosity, they become inspired to be generous on their own often starting their own chain of giving. That is why role models like sports figures, politicians, movie stars and rock stars can inspire a wave of giving … at the same time these same role models who give off negative vibes, can have an adverse effect on our psychic and kindness to others. If you can’t come up with your own idea of an act of kindness, there are plenty of nonprofits you can donate to that have the right ideas.