Random Acts of Senseless Kindness
The Times had a good article today about reported random acts of kindness in the Seattle area, be it paying for someone’s latte or passing out free drinks on a hot day. I found is piece to be quite refreshing, since the news today is typicially dominated by war and bloodshed (if it bleeds, it leads). It’s always good to hear that when I walk out my door I might not be robbed or murdered, but someone might actually do something kind for me without expecting anything in return. Imagine that.
Have you ever given or received a random act of kindness?
I have the bad habit of passing out flowers when I’m in a good mood, and I have paid for things before.
I try to do random nice things whenever I can. I think my favorite thing came many years ago when I had four tickets to a Mariners/Yankees game in my pocket….really good tickets that I got for free. Since I don’t like baseball, I’m easily distracted and decided to go to something else instead. On the way out of the Kingdome (I worked there at the time) I passed a famliy of four (Mom, Dad, two kids under 10) and Mom & Dad were agonizing over whether it was worth it or not to buy nosebleed SRO seats. The kids were begging to go. “Here,” I said, “take these.” I handed them the tickets and just kept walking. A few seconds later I heard an “Oh my god” as the father realized just how good this random free seats were. That was WAY more fun for me than the game ever could have been.
I’ve had lots of people do random nice things for me but I really don’t keep track; I believe that if you act kindly and assume the best about people you’ll generally find more kindness than you would if you purposely go out looking for it. If that makes sense.