Transforming Valentine's Day

My friend Sasha has a pretty cool idea: Transforming Valentine's Day into Generosity Day. You can still eat all your chocolate hearts, but here's the transformation -- or rather, the challenge:

What would it be like to spend one day saying YES to everything?

Here's the background, in Sasha's words:

"About a year ago, I conducted a month-long generosity experiment. It started because, on a cold December day, rushing home on the subway, I passed a homeless person on the street asking for money. As I typically did, I walked by, head buried in my iPhone. The next day I decided that I wanted to change, so I announced a month-long generosity experiment on my blog: I spent the month of December saying YES to everyone who asked me for money (whether a homeless person, a street musician, a nonprofit,….). I found it transformational."

Now I must admit, I've seen this challenge before. In fact, it was homework for me once in business school, when I took a class on Creativity and Personal Mastery. To tell you the truth, I've always stayed clear from it. If anything, I felt that what would bring me peace of mind was starting to say "no" to everything -- to clear my plate of all the should's and nagging obligations.

But for Sasha, I'm going to give it a try on Monday. And you know what? -- I'm actually really excited. There's liberation and freedom in saying yes, especially here in India, when at times it feels like you're always being asked for something by just about everyone. What would it be like to be generous and say yes to everything? -- to beggars on the street (even though intellectually I know this only feeds the problem... or is that just what I tell myself??), to the post-work drink even though I know I should go home and study Hindi.

And for me, the idea of generosity extends beyond just saying yes to everything. It's also being generous to the people around me -- to giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, to being patient in airports even if I think their processes are redundant and designed to be the most customer un-friendly as possible (post to come on my trip back from Jharkhand).

As Sasha says: "This is a semi-crazy idea, but I think it could be great!"

So come join us! Help spread this semi-crazy idea and try it yourself on Monday!!

...And have a chocolate heart for me too, while you're at it.