Photo: Thinkstock

Yesterday I was running a particularly soul-sucking round of errands and parked my car in a metered spot. I paid for the meter's maximum amount of two hours, but my errand only took a half an hour. Now usually I would have been happy to leave a meter with time left, and, particularly on a bothersome day, would even add quarters for the next person. It's largely selfish, really, because then the rest of my soul-sucking errands are cheered a bit by the thought that maybe I made someone else's soul-sucking errands a tiny bit less soul-sucking. But guess what?

My city has made the switch to muni-meters, these robotic-looking machines where you pay on a credit card and receive a receipt that you then stick on your dashboard. Good news if you've run out of quarters, but terrible news for the parking meter pay-it-forward phenomenon. I actually hung around for a minute to see if someone else parked there so I could hand them my time-stamped receipt. Alas, no one did, and my extra $1.50 slipped right past an unsuspecting bystander and into the pocket of the city council or whoever it is. This does nothing for my soul-sucking errands. Next stop, drug store. Sigh.

And you know what? It's the same on the freeway—I have a friend who used to always pay for the toll of the car behind her, but admits that since she's switched to the automated E-Z Pass, she's abandoned the practice, whizzing through as a laser anonymously zeeps her toll-paying pass. Not to get too Andy Rooney here, but these days even doors open themselves! How's a person supposed to perform a daily act of paying it forward if the world's going to be so darn automated?

Well, here are a few ideas for performing small acts of kindness in today's world of the future:

-Donate your unused WiFi bandwidth to people in need.
-Get inspired by others at the Pay It Forward Experience website.
-Use your super techie skills to Hack for Good.

Or you could always do something crazy analog like, I don't know, help a little old lady across the street. 

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Ways Anyone Can Pay it Forward
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