When I park at my train station, I'm usually there early and just sit in my car and listen to the radio. There are a group of high school kids that also wait there. The other day a couple of the girls went running down the parking lot to go to the coffee shop before their train came. I saw something go flying out of one of the girl's bags. She didn't notice it. When I got out to walk over to the station, I picked it up and it was her wallet! I kept my eye out and when they came back I went up to her and returned it. She was so grateful!

We are always kind to service people.

Usually I'm thinking to myself that I would hate to have that job and have to deal with all these crabby people. The looks of relief and thankfulness on their faces make me feel good, so I guess it's not completely altruistic.

We had a waiter last Friday, young guy that forgot a cup for DH's tea. After we told him no problem (at least he came back to check that we had everything we needed) he was so relieved. He told us were were "Awesome customers!" and stayed to talk with us for a while. Nice young man we would never have gotten to meet if we were impatient.

I also make a habit of letting people in on ramps, especially if everyone else is not. I always wave when someone lets me in.

Any time someone helps me out, whether it's their job or not, I tell them "Thank you so much." The response is great and I walk away with a smile. Everyone smiles. It makes for a good day.

I'm not a happy, smiley person all the time, I just try to be nice.

I do a lot of travel research for friends who are too busy or don't have internet access. Recently it bit me in the bu** though. I tried to do too much for too many people at the same time - never again. I was able to get it all sorted out and provide people with info but it made me too confused and frazzled. From now on - only travel projects for others that I have the time to dedicate to.

This isn't a vacation or tourist thing at all to me. It's what I live. My work dwells within a goodly portion of this mode.

But I must have Chicago stamped on my face, because I'm walking or just standing on the bridge down there and get asked directions continually. This last time I could answer the Wacker questions so I felt rather smug, seeing I am not a downtown person.

But seriously, my acts are not random. I walk around my campus and read at the same time (multi-tasking this way on paver paths is not easy) and there are strays everywhere and dramas, and when something happens, I usually know it quickly this way. But my biggest category has been keeping people away from girls who have been raped or assaulted at a Crisis Center, so they have at least a day to get themselves together inside after the hospital release.

You would be shocked at how many good people don't understand what this feels like and want to hang on with sympathy to someone just at the point when they want to be alone. We live in a world that people assume A LOT about their future, their expectations, their life surroundings, the goodness of people etc. And when bad things happen to them do not have the knowledge or context within themselves most of the time now to digest the experience in a way to eventually support emotional health. Verbose way of just saying- leave her alone for awhile. No more social worker forms, no more doctors, no more questions.
You need your time, personal space and control immensely then and often can obtain it the least.

I want to tell on my friend.
Not long ago I went somewhere with a friend of mine and we met a woman she knew. This is the story the second woman told me about the 1st time she'd met my friend:
Her husband had just passed away and she needed to register her child for school. This woman didn't speak English very well and was a little confused, as was the child. The people at the office weren't helping much and the woman was almost in tears. She told me, "all I could do was start praying." In walks my friend, her Spanish is limited but she her heart is not. She saw the woman getting teary eyed and started to help her, somewhere in the middle of it all she gave her a huge hug and she got the child in school. The woman was grateful for the help but it was the hug that she said she'd never forget.

I love this thread. These are all such small things but they are huge to the person who receives. We've all been that lost and it's such a big thing when someone has walked a block out of their way to show us the street where our hotel is or the tram stop that takes us to the airport.

We don't live in a town that gets a lot of tourist business, Columbus, OH. But through the years I have helped travelers. As we live close to the StateHouse, I remember as a young teenager coming across a group of Hungarians who spoke no English trying to navigate our limited public transportation. Hungarian is not a broadly spoken language, like French, Spanish or German. My parents are native Hungarian Holocaust survivors and I immediately offered to help them. I gave them directions how to navigate the bus, where to get off, etc. It somehow didn't seem strange to me. They took my name and phone number, which didn't seem strange either. The next day my mother received a phone call from the Governer's office with an invitation to have dinner with a Hungarian trade delegation and bring the family. It turns out they were diplomats in town and surprised that Columbus had native Hungarian speakers. It was a great evening and my parents were royally treated when they visited Hungary a couple of years later. Serendipity, I suppose, but random acts of kindness can lead to interesting future encounters.

My random act of kindness occurred last weekend and involved my 10 year old daughter. Well I guess in truth this is her random act of kindness. I was shopping with my 2 daughters at the mall. Older daughter was in the dressing room, so 10 yr old and I are sitting by the registers in a store with very loud music, dimmly lit..you know, a teenage store. My younger daughter is investigating the plant next to her chair and through the plant sees someone walk by and drop something. So goes to the other side and sees what was dropped, a $20 bill. Unfortunately because the store was dimmly lit and she was looking through the plant, all she could see of the person who dropped the money was, "It was a girl wearing flip flops." Well that described about every girl in the store. What to do??
We certainly couldn't start stopping people to ask if they dropped $20. I think everyone would answer yes. I told her to hold the money and stand close to where it was dropped and see if someone comes back looking for something. Sure enough after about 5 - 10 mins a mom and 2 girls are in the area looking as though they lost something. We ask, "Did you loose something?" She replies, "Yes, I lost $20." My 10 yr old beamed with pride as she handed the $20 to it's rightful owner.

My DH was the recipient of an act of kindness. He is a police officer and was driving an unmarked car. Because of terrible weather he had pulled a double shift. Exhausted he headed home around 0200 in snow and sleet. The car had a flat and his radio wouldn't transmit and there he was in the middle of US 52, pitch black with no ambient light. A woman he thinks was Vietnamese pulled in behind him, put her car lights on his car and remained there while he changed the tire. He said her English was very limited. He did thank her profusely, but she waved him off when he tried to give her some money. She took a chance many would not. I thank her daily for making him safe that night.

What a great post!

I like doing little unexpected things for people. For instance when I'm in the drive-thru line at our local Starbucks, I will pay not only for my coffee but also for the person behind me.
I live in Detroit, and just allowing someone to merge into construction traffic is considered to be a grand gesture of kindness!
If I know one of my fellow teachers at school is having a particularly bad day, I'll pay for their lunch ahead of time or find a funny story or joke and e-mail it to them.
No one is too busy to get their head out of their own behind and see someone who could use a smile, or a dollar when their short, or a helping hand.

When we travel, I am also the volunteer photographer. I am constantly asking people if they would like a picture taken together... sometimes I'm afraid someone's going to think I'm a stalker!
Parisians get a bad rap for being rude, but I have to say when we were there in February, we asked someone for directions and when the person we asked didn't know, he asked several other people close by and even called someone on his cell phone to get the answer!

heymo, I had the same experience in Paris (in Feb even!) Why they get such bad press is a mystery to me.
I like your name- it's how we call our cat.

It's lovely that people are posting about individual acts of kindness that they have performed; I look forward to the day that such conduct becomes second nature to us all and there are just too many acts to recall. As many have shown, an act of kindness does not have to be grand nor does it require a reward, it simply requires showing some consideration to others.

Yes, then maybe I can rationalize it as a balance against the road rage type behavior that I see demonstrated in our heavy traffic commutes every single day. Honestly, it is just getting worse and worse with people driving through fields/ over barriers etc. I once again yesterday saw someone almost swerve/stop nearly wiping out a sign carrier lady on the I-355 South construction in Homer IL. The sign carrier actually dove into a gully. Those working expressway traffic construction deserve combat pay.

The offender was a 20 year old woman in a hurry AGAIN. Slow down and keep some patience, and maybe most of us could get there alive. It would really be a random act of kindness that is appreciated. Thank you!

Many years ao, I was the reciepient of an act of second-hand kindness. I was driving a marked patrol car and somehow, got a very long length of bailing wire wrapped around the rear axle and tire. I was just about to get down in the dirt to unwrap it, dreading every moment because at that time, we were personally responsible for uniform cleaning and replacement, when a pickup stopped behind me.

The guy driving was dressed in work clothes and told me he would get it so I didn't ruin my uniform. It took about ten minutes and when he finished, I thanked him profusely. He told me that he was just repaying a kindness since he had been stopped and arrested for DUI a few days before and that the officer who arrested him had been sympathetic and kind and he felt the need to repay.

That, and a thank you letter I once got from someone for whom I had written a stop sign ticket, were surprising acts of kindness I received during a long career.

dwooddon, well, now I don't feel so silly! I thanked an officer for a ticket once. What else could I do? I was caught doing something very stupid.
Thank you also for doing your job.