Random acts of kindness
On Friday last while waiting for my wife to come from her appointment I went for a cup of cappuccino in the hospital coffee shop. I lined up to be served and the lady behind me suddenly asked if I’d like a free cup of coffee. It’s not something that happens every day so it took me a little by surprise. She explained that she had plenty of vouchers for free coffees and was pleased to share one with me. I agreed, and then struck up a short conversation with her while waiting for our coffees to be ready.
This random act of kindness got me to thinking; what if everyone set out every day to display one act of random kindness to someone else, preferably a stranger? What a better world this would be?
How about it?
Here’s the challenge: try doing just one act of kindness to someone else every day. Not only will those people be especially blessed by your action, you, too will be blessed in amazing ways by making this world just that little bit better, kinder and friendlier.
Have you noticed how, as we empower individuals, the potential for kind acts decreases? Years ago if one of the commuters who park in our street couldn’t start their car we would let them use our phone. Now we just assume everyone has their own phone. One kind trick used to be to pay for the toll of the motorist coming behind. This was when they had collectors on booths who would wave you through. Now everyone has a device that pays their own toll.
As we make people more self reliant we make sure they depend less on each other. It’s getting harder to find opportunities for kind acts.