Yesterday, @Nicole_Cliffe, whom I do not know except for this brief encounter, started a thread on twitter, asking for times when strangers have been kind to us.
Please. Take time to read the thread. You will not be sorry.
This article, linked to in the thread, is also very much worth your while: a story about Hamlet, and the cruelties of the world, and the taxi driver who intervened.
Read it, and then leave your shame behind. Leave it here.
Right here.
My own contribution to the thread was the time my 3 yr old was chucking a tantrum at swimming. I was tired, she was tired, it was stinking hot and I’d promised her an ice cream after swimming. But the ones at the pool were horribly expensive, and there was a corner store literally next door where we could get a box of 8 ice creams for the same price.
I told her no, and to put her shoes on, then turned my back to walk away (this is a thread that frequently works).
When I turned back, she was gone.
She’d gone back into swimming and helped herself to an ice cream. I caught her just before she cracked it open, returned it to the freezer, and took the now-sobbing child out of there – still planning, mind you, to buy the ice creams next door because I wanted one too, darn it, but did that make a difference to her? No. Of course not.
It was hot. We were tired. I was trying hard not to snap at her, but man, my patience was stretched thing.
A woman stopped as she exited the building, where I was trying to get my daughter’s shoes on.
She looked down at my bawling child, and I got that flash of nerves that parents of children misbehaving in public all know.
“It’s so good to see a mum who sticks to her word,” she said.
I stared at her.
She smiled. “You’re doing a great job.”
I burst into tears.
“You look like you really need a hug,” she said, reaching in.
Numbly, I nodded, and held onto her like she was sanity.
Being kind doesn’t cost you much. But it might just mean the world to someone else. How do we make the world a better place? By being kinder, one moment at a time, one breath, one pause, one day after the other. Kinder, gentler, and encouraging each other.
Do something radical this week. Find someone to encourage. I dare you.