Free Hugs

Quite awhile ago I saw this music video (can you believe they still show those, I think it was on MTV8 or something), but the content of the video was based on a true story.

It was about "The Free Hugs Campaign" which wikipedia describes as a social movement involving individuals who offer hugs to strangers in public places. The campaign is an example of a random act of kindness, a purportedly selfless act performed by a person for the sole reason of making others feel better. Initial distrust of motives eventually gave way to a gradual increase of people willing to be hugged, with other huggers (male and female) helping distribute them.

Here is how Juan Mann (on his website) describes how it started:
"I'd been living in London when my world turned upside down and I'd had to come home. By the time my plane landed back in Sydney, all I had left was a carry on bag full of clothes and a world of troubles. No one to welcome me back, no place to call home. I was a tourist in my hometown.

Standing there in the arrivals terminal, watching other passengers meeting their waiting friends and family, with open arms and smiling faces, hugging and laughing together, I wanted someone out there to be waiting for me. To be happy to see me. To smile at me. To hug me.

So I got some cardboard and a marker and made a sign. I found the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city and held that sign aloft, with the words "Free Hugs" on both sides.

And for 15 minutes, people just stared right through me. The first person who stopped, tapped me on the shoulder and told me how her dog had just died that morning. How that morning had been the one year anniversary of her only daughter dying in a car accident. How what she needed now, when she felt most alone in the world, was a hug. I got down on one knee, we put our arms around each other and when we parted, she was smiling.

Everyone has problems and for sure mine haven't compared. But to see someone who was once frowning, smile even for a moment, is worth it every time."

I really hope I find it in me to think of something so simple yet powerful.

Here is the music video by Sick Puppy "All the Same":