Random Acts of Kindness

You know when you have those days that are just horrible. Nothing goes to plan and you think ‘surely tomorrow HAS to be better. It can’t be worse.’ and then tomorrow arrives and, to your surprise, it did actually play out worse than the day prior? Well that’s been my week. Monday was horrible, Tuesday was worse, Wednesday was worse again, and yesterday just topped off all the awfulness of the week. So I was very uncertain about today. The week so far hasn’t proven itself, and with today being Friday the 13th, I remained unconvinced.

The morning didn’t have anything noteworthy to report, so I was satisfied with that. Nothing awful had happened! So I was quite pleased with that until the events of the afternoon.

I decided I should go into the newsagent, after grabbing the things I wanted I was in the queue to pay when the elderly gentleman in front of me had won a free scratchie ticket. ‘Good for him’ I thought. But then, he turns toward me, smiles, and turns back to the man behind the counter and says: “I’ve had my fair share of free scratchies recently, this is number 5. Give it to the young lady behind me.” I asked the gentleman if he was sure, which he was. So I was handed the scratchie. And won $5….but that’s insignificant in the scheme of it all really.

Even the small gestures can mean more than elaborate gestures of kindness. Particularly when they’re from a stranger. The gentleman in the newsagent wasn’t aware of the rubbish week that had played out and wasn’t aware that his small gesture brought something positive and pleasant to my otherwise unpleasant week.

Random acts of kindness, toward someone you don’t know, with no expectation of anything in return, are, in my opinion one of the most selfless things someone can do. They never know how their small act of kindness impacts the receiver’s day, week, or sometimes even the rest of their life. I was handed a scratchie ticket that could have potentially won me $20,000. He handed me the ticket knowing it could possibly be a substantial amount of money, but what he was thinking was ‘I’ve had enough free tickets, lets have someone else have this one’.

We need more random acts of kindness in the world!