2020 was a year that went like a roller coaster. But amidst everything a few souls have displayed wonderful kindness during the pandemic times. Today’s story is about a woman who showed such an act of kindness. Sending compliment jars to friends anonymously, she displayed humanity and empathy.
The story of the woman who sent Compliment Jars to friends
Colorado resident Kimberly Wybenga thought of brightening up her friends’ lives with some compliments. She decided to create Compliment Jars for 10 of her friends, but while writing the compliments, she felt so great herself that she ended up writing 40 more for friends. Kimberly wrote a total of 1,750 compliments. Meaning that each jar holds 35 compliments! In a time of social media validation and friends often betraying each other, writing 35 compliments for a friend is a big deal.
What makes this act of kindness during the pandemic even cuter is that Kimberly tried to deliver these jars anonymously. She signed all the compliments as “your friend.” She delivered most of the Compliment Jars wearing garments that covered her up properly. She also mailed the Compliment Jars to friends living farther away. She parked her car blocks away and walked to deliver the ones that were closer to her home. But her plan to be a “secret admirer” flew out of the window as her handwriting gave her away — as well as the zip code on the courier packages.
Watch Kimberly Wybenga’s video below:
But, when it came to her friends’ reactions, they were simply floored by this gesture. People often hide their problems even from their best friends and when you suddenly receive a compliment from your friend who says what you wanted to hear, it’s like the universe is on your side, cheering you up. All of Kimberly’s friends just loved this act of kindness and read one compliment each time they felt like they could not achieve anything else.
Inspiring people to help each other
What Kimberly did is something we all should attempt. True that there are places where traditions of Secret Santa are prevalent. People buy gifts for each other, but it is often limited to just a festive mood. And it also happens that the gifts one buys may not be to the liking of the receiver. But, most importantly, these gestures often have a desire of having the gesture returned hidden in them. What Kimberly did was completely selfless. She went ahead with delivering compliments to her friends in the hope of helping them feel good and not be depressed by the state of affairs the pandemic has caused.
Writing compliments and delivering them might sound cheesy and not very gift-worthy to some, but when you are feeling blue and need a positive word, these compliments can be life-changing. What makes this even more beautiful is the fact that while the recipients of these jars were ecstatic about the compliments, the sender too received equal measures of joy writing them. When you write good words to someone, you can feel those positive words resonate within yourself. Your act of kindness during a pandemic helps you become a better person.
