When I joined Twitter in 2009, I never thought I would utter these words: "I love Twitter." Originally, I didn't understand 'the point' of the platform. Why communicate details of your life to people you don't know... and with such a limited character count? Yet slowly, I began to discover the positive power of social networking. Slowly, my twitter feed began to fill with inspirational and uplifting quotes. It brought a smile to my face to log on and read such positive messages. Recently, I received a notification that I had been followed by @OneMansNote. Intrigued, I clicked to the feed and read the page bio: "Spreading love, hope and inspiration through leaving #secretnotes with popular quotes in public places since 2014." |
I heard a story last year about somebody who found a random note on a bus (unsure whether it was left intentionally, or had just fallen down the side) and was blown away by the message left on it. It made her sit up, think and make a big decision. Her decision was to live. She was on her way to kill herself.
Now this story is a bit sketchy, and I can't promise that my recounting of it is accurate, or even true! But either way, whatever the original story was - it made me think. If such a small action can have such a huge effect on someone's life, why don't we do things like this more often?
At the start of this year, I left a few secret notes around my office. I then started leaving them on the tram on my way to and from work. It was the fact that you got no 'feedback' from the act that excited me so much - the possibilities of what happened to that note were endless. I knew, of course, that a large amount would be simply scrunched up and thrown away, but the idea that something I had written might make somebody think, even for a fleeting moment, was exhilarating.
A few of my friends came over to visit me one weekend and when I told them the idea, they wanted to get involved as well. We came up with the name, and the idea to link the notes to a Twitter account. In March this year, we had 0 followers. We now have almost 5,500 and lots of people contacting us from all over the world wanting to get involved.
We tweet popular quotes to put a smile on people's face, post photos of our secret notes but most importantly make sure that regardless of twitter, we are leaving paper trails of happiness wherever we go."
1. Write a positive, uplifting or inspirational note
2. Leave it anonymously for someone to discover
3. Take a photo of the note to tweet @OneMansNote
4. Voila. Good karma!
Now COME ON, DISH! Have you ever come across a secret note? Have you left one yourself? Did this post inspire you to join the movement? Have you ever performed a random act of kindness? Share the goodness!