I let my gf blow me, even tho I really wasn’t in the mood.
It stopped raining for a little while around 3pm, so I took the dogs out in the Jeep. First time in a couple days. They acted like it was their first day on Earth. I’ve never seen them romp and jive so much in a long time. Sheer Joy!
Happy dogs.
I let an acquaintance bring her daughters over to pet my horsies and feed them carrots.
StG
I and two neighbor guys helped a delivery truck driver get moving after getting stuck in the snow. Took about five minutes worth of shoveling and pushing. It’s unlikely he’d be able to get unstuck on his own.
I still work with my ex boyfriend. Today he was the first guy with keys to show up. I’d been sitting in the outside chairs with a couple of other cold-workers and I walked over to the gate and held his coffee while he undid the door and then took the keys and ran over to get the door unlocked before the alarm, because I move faster than him. Then I went through the building and unlocked the door to let in the other two so they wouldn’t have to cross the icy yard.
Btw, yeah making change is a kindness. A lot of people simply wouldn’t bother and the person needed the change could have ended up with a ticket if they decided to chance it.
Am I a day too late? Never mind.
I’m going to spend the afternoon down at the allotments (community garden?) because Edie wants to work on her plot and doesn’t like to be there alone. There isn’t anything in particular that I need to do, but I’ll find something to keep me busy.
j
I disagree. The woman had the dollar in her hand, and she was looking for kindness, not charity. People can be funny about charity, and I thought it was kinder to take the dollar. If a person on a bus needs change of a five, I take the five and given them five ones, though I could afford to pay their bus fare.
Today I held the laundromat door open for a guy with a full shopping cart of clothes. Those things can be hard to maneuver.
Thank you.
My point was, if you hadn’t made change for her, I wouldn’t have considered that neutral. You would have kinda been an asshole. Making change was neutral, just giving the money would have been kindness. Maybe we just have very different standards of basic human interaction.
I believe there are perfectly legit reasons for not wanting to exchange money with a complete stranger.
Not doing anything would have been neutral.
Taking time out of your day to do something for a stranger that you have no obligation to do is an act of kindness. No matter how small the act is.
See, I don’t consider fishing 4 quarters out of my pocket to be “taking time out of my day”. I can walk briskly for 5 seconds and I’m totally caught up.
Ditto. About as much of a kindness as telling them the time. Still better than nothing, but not a whole lot.
You know, I gave a stranger the time once. Hell, I didn’t have to take the time out of my day to look at my watch, and then read the time to her. I just saved her from getting back in the car and having to look at the clock on the dash–if its even set to the right time. If not, she’d have to go to a store and look at their clock. I saved her a considerable amount of inconvenience. It’s simple acts of kindness like that which make me a better person every day.
There was that scene in Seinfeld where a stranger refused to tell George the time, he just pointed to a clip ck and walked away. As George said, you know we’re living in a aociety, right?
Thus calling it a simple act of kindness.
No one disagrees with the use of the word simple here. But it’s merely a simple act. Full stop. Neither kind, nor inconsiderate. A simple act.
I stayed off the roads today full of snow and ice … giving the right of way to others that feel the need to go somewhere in this winter weather. I know it’s not much, but I like to do my part (especially at 74 and my brakes don’t always know when to brake).
I don’t agree with the premise that a favorable act has to rise to a certain level before it can be called “kind”.
Hell, smiling at your waitress is kind, covering your mouth when you cough is kind, flushing the toilet is kind… Yes, these things are all expected norms in a polite society, but to be polite is to also be kind.
Earlier today my daughter and I were talking and I told her how I tell my students each day to spread kindness. I guess my kind act for the day so far, was I helped her finish a school assignment which I didn’t feel like doing, but I didn’t get grumpy or complain about it.
If you go around not smiling, coughing everywhere, not flushing the toilet and refusing to make change then everyone is going to think you’re an annoying ass. Living within a society, it is merely rational self interest not to do that. That’s why they’re calle expected norms.