The other day, I had a mind slip. Thinking about a roof leak, I distractedly moved forward out of turn at a 4 way stop sign. A second later, realizing what I had done, I cringed with remorse, waiting for a loud blast from the other driver’s horn, at the very least. But he simply waited for me to go on, and didn’t even roll down his car window and yell at me. Such an incident might have triggered an act of road rage in a big city, but fortunately, my fellow driver was a kindly person, who perhaps realized I’d had a temporary brain freeze.
On another occasion, I approached a checkout lane at the Dollar Store with some products on the conveyor belt, but no customer in sight. Since I had just 3 items, and my husband was waiting in the car, I proceeded toward the cashier. But just as I was checking out, the missing person came up behind me, and loudly berated me for not waiting while she went to the back of the store for a forgotten item.
One person was kind and forgiving, the other wasn’t. I can tell you that even though the manager came over and apologized, the bad karma generated by this woman’s vitriolic attack left me in an all day funk. For hours, I chastised myself for my inconsiderate action, until my husband finally convinced me it was just a simple mix up, and there was no reason for me to feel so guilty.
But the kindly person who forgave my stupidity at the stop sign actually made my day. If I met him, I might learn that he volunteers at a soup kitchen or acts as a caregiver for his ailing wife.
Other simple acts of kindness make the world seem a better place—when I’m lost in an unfamiliar town, the stranger at a gas station who goes out of his way to lead me to my destination. The little child who runs up behind me in a parking lot to tell me I dropped my credit card.
Whether it’s forgiving a stranger for a mistake, or going out of your way to help a fellow human being, the kindness of strangers offers a ray of hope for a return to civility, instead of the vicious rhetoric dividing our nation today.
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