We’d upgraded to a shiny new flatscreen TV and had the old fat tube just sitting around. It’s old and now looks positively ancient but it works fine so it seemed a shame to just take it to the tip.
I’d been meaning to try Freecycle for a while and never had anything to offer so it was time to have a go. It was smooth and quick: find my local group on http://www.freecycle.org/, join the group on Yahoo and add a message, not even as long as a tweet.
Within 3 hours I had 3 enquiries, people locally whose kid wanted a TV or whose TV had blown up and they needed one for a while until they could budget for a new one. Another hour later the TV was gone and I got to feel good about doing a good deed.
The next day unexpectedly I got another message thanking me so I got to feel good all over again.
Maybe its true that we are only nice to others because it makes us feel good – but I still actually helped someone, even if only in a small way, and that’s something I don’t do enough.