S 
          everal years ago, I was deeply touched by the movie, Pay It Forward. The film is the story of an 11-year-old boy, 
          Trevor, given a social studies assignment to think of and implement an idea that will change the world. From this challenge, the concept of "pay it forward" was born. The essence of "pay it forward" is that when someone does an act of kindness for you, rather than paying them back, you do something kind for three other people who will, in turn, do something kind for three more people, thus creating a ripple effect of good will. From a very early age, we're taught that kindness and com­passion are important virtues. (Remember the bumper sticker that read, "Practice random acts of kindness"?) If you're a religious person, you're proba­bly aware that compassion is at . the heart of every great religious tradition but what, exactly, is compassion and how does it fit into our everyday lives?

Compassion is much more than just feeling sorry for someone. It's a mental attitude based on the wish for others to be free of their suffering, and as­sociated with a sense of commitment, responsibility and respect for others. Interestingly, scientific research is now confirming that acts of kind­ness are not only good for the recipi­ent, but good for the doer and for the world in general.

Several years ago, I had the opportu­nity to experience the "pay it forward" effect in my own life. While working as a psychologist, I donated quite a lot of time to an ll-year-old boy named Danny, who was referred for truancy and possible drug involvement. At age 12, he was arrested for using and selling drugs, and placed in juvenile detention. I lost track of Danny until 10 years later when I received a call that was one of the highlights of my life. The caller said, "Mrs. Daisy, this is Danny I want to tell you that I'm five years clean and sober, have a good job, attend AA regularly and I'm working a good program. You believed in me and planted the seeds for a better life. Now I want to spend my life doing the same for young boys struggling like I did."

Helping others can satisfy our basic human need for connecting with oth­ers, as well as have a positive effect on our emotional and physical health. I love the study by David McClelland, a psychologist at Harvard University, who demonstrated that even when we simply view compassionate acts, we experience an increase m lmmuno-globulin-A, an antibody that can help fight respiratory infections. (I get my personal immunoglobulin-A fixes by watching re-runs of Steven Spielberg's beautiful movie, ET: The Extra- Ter­restrial, and it's more fun than taking Vitamin 0)

There are many other studies dem­onstrating the benefits of kindness, but in the end, we don't need to rely on experiments and surveys to confirm the real value of compassion and acts of kindness. We can witness on a daily basis the close links between a caring, generous spirit, and personal happi­ness in our own lives and in the lives of those around us.

In the words of the Dalai Lama, "World economies are always tenuous, and we are subject to many losses in life, but a compassionate attitude is something we can always carry with us." If we make our best efforts to be kind and to cultivate compassion then, at the end of the day, we can say we have done our best to make the world a more loving place for ourselves and our children.