A few days ago, I happened on a piece in my Axios newsletter. It has stuck with me and, because I am totally sick of US news lately, I thought I would focus my attention on it. The idea was the benefits of paying it forward and acts of kindness. We’ve all heard of little acts that actually make a big difference. A prime example is a driver in the toll lane pays not only for him/herself but also for the driver behind. It can have a ripple effect, with the other drivers in line inspired to do the same thing.
Or take the person in the Walmart line that is short of cash when the cashier is done ringing up purchases. A person in line behind might be inspired to make up the difference. It’s such a small thing but saved the first customer from embarrassment. That customer might later do something nice for an elderly neighbor.
Kindness can spread just as well as a virus.
I have been in some tough situations in my lifetime. One particular period of time was when my first husband, Rich, was recovering from heart surgery. He was on medical leave and was receiving a very small portion of his salary. I was working as a sign language interpreter for a school district but it was only part-time. Rich needed a lot of help in those days and could only care for our baby a few hours at a time. We were struggling to pay our rent, for food, and for expensive medications for Rich not covered by insurance. We couldn’t bring ourselves to reach out for help.
Somehow, my cousin Mary figured it out. She would come over to visit or to babysit Billy if I happened to pick up a freelancing gig. Maybe it was what was in our fridge or what we wore. One time when she dropped by to visit, she had a warm, full length winter coat for me. I didn’t have any nice coats to wear when I went to work and this was an act of kindness that meant so much to me.
When Rich was doing better and we were more financially secure, I felt a need to pay it forward, as it were. We were going to church at that point and I learned that there were a lot of vets living under a bridge that was on our way to the church. The church was providing cots to sleep on during the winter months and Rich became on of the volunteer drivers to pick the guys up and bring them to the church. I joined a team of volunteers that rotated at Elizabeth House, where we served meals to those in need. Many nights, we served families.
Here we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and yet we have vets and families homeless and hungry. It’s appalling. When I give, I donate to food pantries and No Kid Hungry or the Harry Chapin Foundation. Ted and I can afford our food so it’s a small act of kindness to try and see that others get a meal.
Before the pandemic, I was a volunteer reader at an elementary school. I read one-on-one with students K-2 and these were children who struggled with reading but not so much they qualified for special services. I loved reading to the kids, most of whom had never had anyone read to them before. I loved talking to them, learning about them and their interests. Many of them grew more self-confident with the individual attention. It wasn’t a small act of kindness because reading helps children to succeed later in life. It was mostly an act of kindness to me because I love reading so and wanted the kids to feel the same way.
The point of all this is that volunteering or performing small acts of kindness ends up being a win-win situation. The people we do a kindness for receive something that they need and it’s a feeling of relief or joy for them. Feeling relief or joy starts the feel-good endorphins flowing and they’re likely to be kind to someone else. As for the person who volunteers or helps out some way, the feel-good endorphins flow as well. There is a feeling of doing something positive in a world of so many negatives.
When I volunteer, I feel I’m doing something useful and beneficial. Working people are often too busy to volunteer a lot of their time but it only takes a few minutes to perform an act of kindness. I wish we would all do this. It could be healing for us all.
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