Enjoy summer, do something random

I just love the sweet feeling of summer. When June comes around the sun is shining the temperature is 93 degrees, the beach is filled with frolicking people, and I get to relax sitting in a chair on the sand with a cold drink in hand and my shades on my nose.

It’s the time I get a break from school and enjoy what life has to offer. As usual I’m looking forward to seeing big-name movies such as “Iron Man 2,” “The Last Airbender,” or “Twilight: Eclipse.”

I wonder, though. All these summers are beginning to feel like reruns like I expect the same old thing to happen, like going Dodger game and taking the annual family camping trip to the same old place: Pismo Beach.

On New Year’s Day people make resolutions while I celebrate my birthday since it is on New Year’s. This summer I am going to make my own New Year’s resolution: To do something different.

A few years ago a random act of kindness was reported in the news. At the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge there is a toll of $6 for vehicles and there is a man who pays for the toll behind him every single morning and when the toll takers tell the drivers that their toll has been paid for they’re shocked. This also happened during the Christmas season there was a chain reaction of drivers paying for the car behind them.

Another time on Yahoo! I read that some people had picked up the restaurant tab of others. Suddenly there was a sudden chain reaction of people picking up tabs for random people they didn’t even know.

I see it everyday someone doing a kind deed, and I’m just sitting there looking wishing I had done that. Everywhere I look on my block there is someone doing some kind of good deed. I see the neighbors collecting clothes for a clothing drive or donating blood, little gestures that I can do but never try.

I know a Citrus Student who volunteers with kindergarten kids on Friday because he wants to. He says that he gets a rewarding feeling every time he goes to their school.

I like to experience that feeling and write about it or talk about the good things that I have done.

“Do good things, and good things happen to you.” I believe this saying to be true, and I think it is an idea for us all to do a random act of kindness this summer.

I know there is a lot that I could do this summer. I can volunteer at a home for the elderly, help out at soup kitchen, pay for someone else’s bus fare, help a motorist whose car breaks down or I can donate blood.

Or I can help plant trees and do the shopping for my grandma when her legs are hurting.

Community service is another option. Doing community service is a way to gain knowledge and experience outside the classroom that will help in our future careers.

As students and community members we should give back, at least once in a while, if only to establish some kind of direct relationship with our neighbors. A little kindness can go far in the long run.

If I can do or say something that makes another person smile, who knows: maybe I will experience that awesome feeling: “I did something for someone else and it was rewarding.”

And after that, after you accomplish what is most important this summer, you can do what you want.