Small Acts of Kindness Make a Big Difference
The best portion of a good man’s life
is his little, nameless, unremembered
acts of kindness and of love.
~ William Wordsworth
As we go through our day, we often have opportunities to be kind. Some require very little of us – a smile or a pleasant word. Others ask more from us, but they are still easy, within our comfort zone. We may assume that because they are small, they don’t make much of a difference, but that is not necessarily true.
There are no insignificant acts of kindness, no matter how small they may seem to be.
There are different ways of thinking about the impact of kindness:
The Ripple Effect
Every act of kindness has an energy that goes out beyond the people involved. Some people call it the ripple effect. The person receiving the kindness may have her mood uplifted and begin to be kinder to others. People observing the kindness may be inspired to look for opportunities to do the same.
We never know the extent of the ripple, but we do know that as others pass kindness on in their lives, that will create new ripples, and the impact of the original act is multiplied many times over.
The Kindness Boomerang
Orly Wahba, founder of Life Vest Inside, has devoted her life to spreading messages of kindness and teaching young people the joy of being kind. Her video, “The Kindness Boomerang,” went viral, carrying the message that the kindness we give, not only spreads, but eventually returns to us, making its rounds through the lives of others on its way back to us.
We have noticed in our own lives and by observing other people’s lives, that the kinder we are, the more often kind people show up in our lives. We don’t see it as a direct line from one act through others back to us. We see it as an energy that we put out and it returns to us in kind.
We call this The Circle of Kindness.
It is not linear. There is usually no direct connection between our actions and the way in which the kindness comes back to us. But we are sure that the energy we put out eventually returns, and it can come in the most surprising ways, often just as we need it most
Sometimes, I can see – or imagine - a connection. One memory always comes to mind.
When my daughter, Christie, was a teenager, she and I had spent a few days in New York City as tourists from Arizona. Then, I put her on a train in Pennsylvania Station so she could spend a few weeks with her best friend, Christine, who was staying for the summer with her grandmother in Pennsylvania. It was Christie’s first trip on her own.
I traveled uptown to Grand Central Station, where I was going to take a train to Connecticut to spend time with my mother. As I walked toward my gate, I was approached by a young man who asked me if I had $5 so he could get a train ticket home. Without stopping to consider if he was being honest or just pan handling, I said “Of course” and gave him $5. If that had been Christie, what would I want someone to do for her?
Later that evening, Christie called my mother’s phone – it was long before cell phones – and told me her story. She had missed her stop and panicked when she realized it. The woman sitting next to her on the train assured her that it would be alright. She was getting off at the next stop and offered to drive Christie back to the right station. They easily connected with Christine and her grandmother.
We all learned something about kindness that day. Not so much about the mechanics of it, but about how we can count on it to show up – for kind people to show up – when we are most in need.
In the circle of kindness, we are all in the flow of giving and receiving. We don’t have to understand how it works. Just knowing that it does empowers us to make choices that keep us in the flow.
Kindness becomes a way of life.
Do you have a story to share about kindness coming to you unexpectedly? Please leave a comment below.
Image by Fernando González from Pixabay
Click here to learn more about Orly Wahba and the Kindness Boomerang
