Random Acts of Kindness

Have you done any lately? When was the last time you were kind for no reason, maybe even to a stranger or someone who you don't feel deserved it?

This guy has been performing random acts of kindness every day for 289 days. He gives me hope for humanity, even during election season when things get especially nasty and it seems like our country is about to implode.

"Doing good feels good," to paraphrase a parent. She is absolutely right. Go try it today: do something totally random and very kind, and report back. It needn't be huge; one of the things I like to do is very small but effective. Sometimes we shop at Aldi, a grocery store that secures its carts with chains to avoid paying staff to retrieve them from all over the parking lot. You insert a quarter into the cart to release the chain, and when you put the cart back, you get your quarter back. I started leaving the carts secure but unchained to give the next person A) a free cart and B) a quarter if they wanted it.

One Saturday I left my quarter and was sitting in my car in the parking lot, organizing my stuff to go to another store when a lady knocked on my window; when I rolled the window down, she handed me the quarter I left in the cart, saying she noticed I forgot it.

This may not seem like much. It's a quarter. But this particular Aldi is in a very low-income neighborhood, and sometimes a quarter makes a huge difference. This lady ran across the parking lot to give it back to me. I explained what I was doing (leaving it on purpose) and she almost cried. I drove away, and when I pulled into the next grocery store (sometimes I go to several), I heard someone calling across the parking lot. It was the same lady, and she wanted to know how much that simple gesture touched her and that she was going to start doing the same thing.

A quarter. It doesn't take much. It is the compassionate, connected intention behind the act, not the grandeur. Go do something nice today.