I was at a basketball game with a friend, and he said to me "I've been meaning to give you a compliment."

I was excited. Typically compliments don't come with an intro, preparing you for the actual compliment -- typically one is just complimented.

He said "I was feeling guilty the other day for using paper plates instead of washable ones, and I couldn't figure out why. But then I realized, it was probably because I read my '5 Minutes of Caring' email every morning."

He continued toward resolution.

"I don't know if I'm going to stop using paper, but I do know I didn't like the feeling of being wasteful."

I indeed did take it as a compliment. Because what he was feeling I hope was not a sense of guilt, but rather a sense of responsibility. A sense of responsibility he was attributing to the work of CoolPeopleCare, and that made me feel good.

Because it's not the hope or expectation of Sam and I that people read an article and immediately change their ways to recycle more, be more polite or give more back to the community. Of course, that would be nice, but it is not realistic.

Our hope, driven by our philosophy of "a lot of a little," is that individuals begin to feel that responsibility for themselves and their actions, and begin to make better choices at the grocery store or in the HOV lane.

And our hope is that the beginning is just that -- a start. And through 5 minutes a day, the little begins to add up. And eventually all our little bits have grown into something very big.

2 others have done this "5 minutes of caring" To date, you've cared for 0 minutes on CoolPeopleCare.org

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