Have You Filled Any Buckets Today?

Have you ever heard the Bucket story?

Basically, each and every person in this world has an invisible bucket. The more full the bucket is, the better and happier the person feels; the emptier the bucket is, the more depressed or sad the person is. A person’s bucket gets filled by other people doing or saying nice things to and for them – telling someone to have a nice day, opening a door for them, giving them a hug, offering to help them carry their bags, even just giving them a simple smile. Many of the suggestions we’ve shared (and that you’ve done) during this Random Acts of Kindness Challenge, are ways that you are filling the buckets of those around you.

By doing something for someone and filling your bucket – you’re not depleting your own bucket, are you? No. Instead, you are actually filling your own bucket each and every time you say or do something kind for someone else. Isn’t your Center a better place since your colleagues began looking for ways to do Random Acts of Kindness? Wouldn’t your community be a nicer place to live if you and your neighbors started looking for opportunities (and carrying them out) to help other community members? Can you imagine this nation or this world, if we all started looking for ways that we can fill the buckets of each person with whom we interact each day? Talk about a happier, healthier, more peaceful and optimistic world to live in! Where do I sign up?

Oh! We don’t need to sign up at all! All you have to do… is fill a bucket! Say something nice to your boss. Do something nice for your colleague. Help a parent with something. The sky’s the limit, the effort is minimal, and the effects are far-reaching and long-lasting.

(Click the Photo above to Watch and Listen to the story, or copy and paste this link into a new window: https://youtu.be/qVXED9ZVQ3A).

It’s really amazing what a little bit of bucket filling will do to a person. With each of you being in the crucial roles you’re in at a Center for children, you have a great opportunity to encourage little ones to become bucket fillers. I’ll use a personal example here… My middle son

(pictured here in the orange) is high energy and can be a handful. He really likes to get his way and can become very aggressive when taunted and laughed at by others. He’s also very sensitive and kind, but not everyone sees that side right away. A couple of years ago, I shared the bucket story with my children. He really got it and made sincere efforts to fill others’ buckets. As life went on, we left it behind and hadn’t talked about it in quite some time. I brought it up again this weekend… Today, he gave his new chain and jacket to a friend in the neighborhood, one he knows doesn’t have the best home life and has less money than we do. He loved the jacket because he thought it made him look like Michael Jackson, yet it gave him greater joy to see the happiness that it brought his friend. He even went back in the house to get him a special box that Santa had given him for his chain last Christmas, and one of his small toy containers, so that he could fold the jacket in the container and place the jewelry box on top, to keep everything clean and neat. He continued… he wants to be a millionaire or a billionaire so that any time he sees a homeless person, he can give them money, “like a thousand dollars or something,” to help them get a house or whatever they need.

I share that story not to boast, although I am very proud of him or his efforts to fill his friends bucket. I share it to emphasize how tiny efforts to act kindly towards others has a ripple effect far beyond the one initial act.

There are many resources available to teachers and others working with children at Bucket Fillers 101. Please share any ways that you implement Bucket Filling in your Centers, and of course all of your Random Acts of Kindness! We need to hear from YOU in Wellspace. Let us know what YOU are doing to spread kindness, and let us know when you see OTHERS doing kind things for others in your Center! By sharing, you are also encouraging others to do the same.

Let’s Go Out and Fill Buckets today!
If you’re feeling a little low, know that in making a tiny effort to help someone else, you will Fill your OWN bucket TOO!!!