What is Pay It Forward?

Answer 1

In the modern vernacular the phrase has been adopted to mean, "don't worry about it, just go on and be a good influence with your life, or whatever." But the source of this phrase has a foundation that was popularized as part of the new millennium.

Pay It Forward may refer to the book, the film, or the movement on which they are based. This social experiment is accredited to a boy named Trevor McKinney, whom Hypothesized that if someone were to "do something big" for three people and ask nothing in return, and that rather, they "pay it forward," doing three favors for other people, one could have a greater impact on the world. Similar to this movement, "Rachel's Challenge" describes the inherent contagiousness of deed doing. Where Rachel's Challenge focuses more on the sense of kindness, Pay it Forward is a simple plan to achieve world betterment.

The Pay It Forward film, made in 2000 (starring Hayley Joel Osmont, Kevin Spacey, Jim Caviezel, Helen Hunt, Jon Bon Jovi and Jay Mohr) Is based on one man's part at the receiving end of this movement inspiring a backwards search for the source of the concept, Trevor.

In theory, If everyone were to follow suit with the original plan, Trevor's school project grows exponentially; as follows: (Total Number of deeds) = 3^n, where n is equal to the generation of deeds.

0, 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729, 2187, 6561, 19683...

So if someone tells you to "pay it forward" and you don't mind personally fostering a massive amount of kindness, you best find some people who need a little help; otherwise the Realists will have the last laugh.