Wednesday October 10

Erin McHugh’s One Good Deed: A Promise and Path to Kindness

I know Erin McHugh to be a good person -- she is a friend of mine and that can't be easy! And, I know Erin McHugh to be a good writer; she has written more than twenty books on just about every subject imaginable. Now, in One Good Deed: 365 Days of Trying to Be Just a Little Bit Better, McHugh has combined her work and her words.

The life of a writer can be isolating. As a writer accomplishes her work, she can find herself removed from the world. That is just what McHugh experienced, and she felt the absence. It began to affect her ability to interact, to help, to pitch in, to be a good citizen and person. So she came up with an action plan: Do at least one conscious act -- a good deed to benefit someone else -- every day. To make herself accountable to the task, McHugh started a blog to post about her progress. And from that blog grew her book, One Good Deed. Its subtitle is just as relevant: " Trying to Be Just a Little Bit Better."

It doesn't require acts out of the Mother Teresa playbook to do a good deed. It can be simple. Have you ever put a few Peeps into a microwave? Well, Erin did to entertain a couple of kids, who squealed with delight as the yellow bunnies swelled as if they were the Michelin Man, only to shrink back in the air. And, for Erin, some of the acts called for courage in the face of adversity. While reading her exploits, you get to know the woman Erin, and so her book is reminiscent of a memoir. But One Good Deed isn't about Erin, or specifically what she did -- though this aspect is highly entertaining. At its core, One Good Deed is a "how-to." It can be done; we can be good to one another and it can be fun and certainly rewarding. It is said that true leadership is done by example, and in One Good Deed Erin McHugh provides a wonderful example of how to be.