Pay It Forward ~ What Does It Mean?

Paying it forward is a third-party beneficiary concept that involves doing something good for someone in response to a good deed done on your behalf or a gift you received. However, when you pay it forward, you don't repay the person who did something nice for you. Instead, you do something nice for someone else. For example, if someone changes your tire while you are stranded on the highway, you might pay it forward by shoveling your elderly neighbor's walkway after a snow has fallen.

The concept of paying it forward comes from a 2000 movie Pay It Forward, starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. In this movie, a young boy, played by Haley Joel Osment, is given a school assignment that requires him to find some way to change the world. He develops the pay it forward concept, setting forth a chain reaction of good deeds. Additionally, the 1951 book "Between Planets" by Robert A. Heinlein contained the concept and is actually considered the first work to popularize the idea.

What does Pay It Forward mean to you?