When Ellis started off her speech today with complementing random people within the audience of our class the room immediately got a spark of life. People that were starting to doze from the lengthy stretch of listening to speeches snapped awake and hearts began to race as the anticipation of her saying something nice about them generated excitement. Smiles spread across everyone’s faces as this was not something we expected from one of the speech nor is it a common occurrence in our every day life. Ellis turned to me and with her friendly, genuine smile and perky attitude simply stated, “Anna, I really love that sweater”. At first confused and honestly shocked I was speechless and felt my face flush with color. A smile was all I could do. A thank you was all I could utter.

However, the feeling that I felt, something not many people get to experience these days as face to face compliments are not that common was so much more than the thank you I gave or the smile I returned. As she went on to state in her remarkable speech, sometimes these compliments are brushed aside or not given much notice but the immediate feeling someone gets, this spark of confidence and genuine connection and just overall happiness should not be forgotten. This is the fuel needed to continue the chain of kindness; it is needed to spread random acts of kindness or just a way of life where kindness is a key motive.

I did not experience having a “You’re Pretty” post-it stuck to my backpack to uplift my miserable day like Ellis described (which is such a wonderful, adorable thing by the way), however just hearing about this occurrence was enough to inspire me. Sitting there in class, listening to Ellis speak about how it is our duty as Penn State students as well as general citizens to be kind to those around us I could not agree more. I love how she pointed out that it is one of our many civic duties as general citizens, specifically current members of the Penn State community, to spread this love and kindness. We are all in the same boat—we are away from our loving families, have heaps of homework, and miss our dogs. So making someone’s day a little bit better while walking around campus will make our new home an actual loving home.

Walking around the rest of the day I made it my goal to compliment as many people as I could. In the hopes of making other people’s days better, my day actually turned out to be such a happy, positive day as smiles spread across the people’s faces. As I was walking into my next class I loved this girl’s bold pants and really admired her for having a unique style. Instead of holding to myself how much I love her pants like I probably normally would have, scared to talk to someone in the class I never have, I told her how much I absolutely love her pants. This led to a couple minutes discussion on the store Metro downtown where she got them; I had a new friend in my classmate. You never know what a simple compliment can do. Make it a goal to fulfill your civic duty to keep the kindness coming here at Penn State!

Thanks so much to Ellis for her fabulous speech! And for whoever placed the post-it on Ellis’ backpack to start it all, you rock. Did you ever think it would have had such a huge impact?