Oh my goodness, I honestly didn’t see this msg before I posted!
Umm, great minds think alike? 
I also pick up trash, hold doors, trade places in line with people who have two items as opposed to my whole cart, let people merge in traffic if they signal, signal to merge or turn, smile and say please and thank you to service people, make friendly greetings to strangers I pass while walking dogs, donate food and goods to charities, help rescue lost and homeless pets occassionally, give back money and correct totals if a cashier makes a mistake and I catch it, even when it means I pay more.
Oh, and every two or three years I get suckered into taking in another cat. I’m almost due, but I swear this time, no matter how cute, or how in need of a new home the next one is, six is enough!
I say “good morning” to the regulars on the bus and the bus driver.
I let people play with my kitty.
I always hold doors for people with boxes, kids, or injuries. The UPS guy dropped his little computer thingy about 4 times trying to get into our building today.
I hold elevators for people.
I help anyone who is moving heavy things.
I tell people where the bus they are on is going.
I grin at well-behaved kids on the bus, at the store, at the park…and their parents.
I always thank waitstaff for refills and condiments and always tip well.
I help people move their boats and volunteer to drive shuttles on trips.
I’m a horrible person.
Nope. That list just makes me want to be your friend. I asked for tips on how to increase the size of my warm little sphere. Every suggestion is appreciated.
{Listen: I despise my job. I have a ruptured disk in my back. An apparent sense of entitlement boils my blood. I don’t like paying bills or taxes and I am embarrassed and disgusted by this war. And sometimes the random stranger that I am nice to will raise an eyebrow and look at me like “Sucker :dubious:”. I cannot pretend that I am some happy-go-lucky gullible goofball committed to spreading sweetness and light. I am nice because it feels good and I don’t expect anything in return- and from what I have read neither do any of you. But in truth I couldn’t care less if someone being sweet is motivated by merit, eternal reward, recruiting or flirting- if someone is nice to me I am going to take it at face value and run with it. I just want to make running errands a little more pleasant for me and the other mammals.}
Back to our regularly scheduled programming: I think our little plan for creating a kinder environment is coming along nicely.
Do we need a secret handshake or should we just keep operating on instinct and nice-dar?
I think a big smile is all the recognition signal we need - and it sounds like those who have posted to this thread will have no problem remembering it. 
Lets see
I can’t help but do the polite stuff my parents taught me, pick up the trash, hold doors etc… I use to help distressed motorists but I limit that to the truly needy (read that as non-threatening). The last major one was years ago when cars were easier to work on (replaced the distributor module).
Fixed a game controller last week for some friends. Yesterday I was at a blues festival and some guy was trying to put away a folding chair while holding a little dog so I helped with that (it was that or laugh hysterically). I also made sure to thank the musicians I ran into at the festival. Helped a friend through some financial difficulties last year.
Should probably be more helpful since I’ve got time on my hands but job hunting has made me a little cranky. That and dial-up.
This is a wonderful thread, so I’ll bump it up…the kindness shown here is what I try to do day to day.
Particularly, ala Caridwen, is especial kindness toward older people. The world zooms on so fast these days, and it’s often confusing for older folks; basic niceties and manners are well-appreciated. As one approaching middle-age, I can hear the creaking of what ya thought was a goddam fine ship, and so now see the joy in younger people appreciating you. (Uh, ain’t That Old Yet, mehopes, but have hit the wisdom years where I get it better)
For me, too, I find I have the ability to extend kindness to simple insects. I’ve always tried to do that, really, but now find extra time to escort whatever wasp or critter outdoors, rather than swat and curse at it for disrupting office space. Now, my coworkers do that, too. It’s been nice to see that a life, however small, is valued, and not just crushed for convenience.
I’m really liking the smile at strangers vibe in my new town. I just moved here from the big smoke, Melbourne, where every day on my way to and from work, I would pass the same girl. In my head I referred to her as The Otherway Girl, since she was always going the opposite direction. I saw this girl twice a day for more than half a year, and she never once returned my smile. Some days she would completely avoid eye contact, some days she would look disdainfully at me, but I would almost always make the effort.
Here, it took two successive days in a row for me to discover my new Otherway Girl, who has started saying things like “Hello again!” and small talking about the weather and stuff. I mean to invite her round for a cup of tea some time soon.
Pick up dropped objects, hold doors; if I pick up some documents from the printer and I see something that appears to belong to a specific person I give it to them (I don’t just leave it on their desk if they’re not there).
I may let others go before me in line but not always. The other day I was in the line at the supermarket’s cashier. The guy before me had two items, the one before him three, the one behind me five, I had one (big, but one). This woman came up and said “youguysdontmindifIgofirstdoyou?Ionlygotoneitem” and plunked her item directly on the desk. I said “uhm, I have one item only, too. He’s got two, he’s got three…” “oh, ok, that’s why I was asking, you know! All you need to do is speak up, haha!” I got me three smiles from the the guys, one didn’t even bother trying to hide it from her. The fact that she hadn’t waited for a response and was basically counting on us not saying anything just pissed me off. If everybody on the line had been a guy she might have been able to get away with it.
My office is a large open space, with tables grouped in “islands”. No cubicle walls. Funny piece of info: I’m working on a MS on Industrial Safety and it cites US statistics that most workers would rather have an office, and if one is not possible, they’d rather have a cubicle than an open space. In France, Spain and Italy it’s the opposite: if we can’t have privacy, we’d rather see the people we hear. I know bosses who, when they got assigned to a “fishbowl”, left that office as a meeting room and stayed on the general floor: one says that it ain’t private if you can’t fart or pick your nose, so if he can’t get privacy he prefers to be with the rest. Anyway, back to what I was saying, here it’s customary to pick up your neighbor’s phones if they’re not there and leave them a note. Last time I worked in the US, I got this introduced in my team since anyway 90% of the calls we got were for “anybody in the team”, actually. Personal call, you wrote down a note; team call, you solved the problem.
I use my blinkers, let people with faster cars pass me, help other drivers join traffic.
I return borrowed and communal items to the place where I got them.
Hell, it’s basically good manners. Good manners change with location but not that much really.
I forgot one:
When I see someone who’s got something I love, I say so. Too often we only say the bad things! I used to have a jacket (lost it in Paris… WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I want my jacket baaaaaaaaaack!) that was absolutely gorgeous; people came up to me a few times to ask me where had I bought it. One of those times, I’d been having a lousy day and that compliment from a stranger felt like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. So now I compliment both stranger and known on clothes, hair, baby pics, cars, you name it. If I like it, I say so!
Yes, baby pics: one of my coworkers has twins and his daughter is cutier than my nephew! Nobody should have kids cutier than one’s own, but he does! (sorry, don’t have a scanner handy)
A lot of the ones already mentioned above, but also:
-
I’m big and scary-looking (after dark only
), and I walk home through dark streets at 11pm after my shift (and I walk fast), so I’ll slow down, speed up, cross the street, take a different street, etc if I’m going to suddenly bear down on some woman walking home alone, even if it adds a minute or two to my journey. -
On the same trip home, because it’s at night, I never press the button to activate the pedestrian crossing. Only one of me, and it’s a six lane road, which is still busy at that time of night, but the cars tend to come bunched together, and there are long periods where there is quite obviously NOTHING coming, so I’ll break the law and walk on the red without activating the traffic lights. Either I wait a couple of minutes, or fifty cars do if I press that button.