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Unexpected Kindness in a Business Meeting

Just this week, I was in a meeting with a gentleman I hold in high esteem. This is a business meeting at a retreat center and we both went out for a walk together on a cliff overlooking the ocean (lucky me, I know!) At the end of the meeting I offered him a heart pendant, a particularly unique one that was close to my own heart. He asked where it came from and when I shared that it was from a slum community in India, he asked to hear more. He seemed visibly moved by the end and took out a sum of money and asked me if I could pass it along to them. I felt very connected to him, and the community in India that it came from in that moment. It led me to ask a deeper question about who was being kind to whom in that instant. Especially in a ... Read Full Story >>

My First Experience With Smile Cards

Well.....I just couldnt WAIT to try out my smile cards. Last week I set out on my nightly outing -- to a meeting, and then to spend some time with my best friend. I told him I wanted to use my smile cards. First stop, the Dollar Store. I bought 2 nice candle jars with thoughtful things written on them. Next up, 7 Eleven. We parked and looked for someone to give a candle and card to. A woman had just gotten gas and was walking into the store. I hurriedly got out and ran over to her car, put the candle and card on top where she couldn't miss it, and ran back to my truck and waited. When she came out, she saw it, looked around, and acted like she was afraid to touch it! Another man getting ... Read Full Story >>

An Opportunity to Connect, to Love

It's 5:15am at the local Starbucks.  I'm standing in line and the person ahead of me in line is putting together what seems to be a large order.     "Can I have some bagels, donuts, oh and some brownies too, along with this coffee order."   My curiosity is peaked, and she chimes to the counter person, "Thank you, the order is for the nurses at Sloan-Kettering Cancer society because they've been doing a great job taking care of my Dad."  I tend to believe that people share things in order to be self expressed, and to be heard, to have their expression recognized.     Standing in line, fiddling with my book bag, the possibility of her wanting to be heard flashed by.  I, stopped, and asked her how her father was doing.   "He's in a coma, he fell into a coma yesterday and my sister and I have been taking shifts being there with ... Read Full Story >>

Finally, This Was My Moment

Below is my story which I shared on Facebook about my act of kindness yesterday. Many of you have done this often. Yet I've never had the opportunity until yesterday.  Yesterday I was finally able to do act of kindness I have always wanted to do. This isn't an everyday ordinary kindness that you can just 'do'. It sorts of just happens. If your open to it .... After my visit with Olga yesterday I needed to pop into the supermarket quickly on my way home to grab a few things. So there I was, in the 15 items or less line, waiting to be served when I noticed a young lady in front of me.  She was quite young and had a toddler with her in a stroller. She was really struggling with and juggling her items, which is probably what drew my attention to her. So I stared, as I do ... Read Full Story >>

Rock N Roll Never Dies

After 11 years of being "lucky to live Hawaii" my wife and I are moving to Florida to take care of my Mother.  It's a real treat for my wife, who is a local girl who has never been to the mainland.  

To minimize expenses we decided to mail the essentials from Hawaii to Florida -- the cheapest solution we could come up with. This also meant parting with things that we have held onto.  Things like my cassette tape collection,  along with my vinyl record collection. I'm guessing that I probably had about 300+ cassette tapes, mostly 60-70's rock and around 100 or so vinyl LP's, many bootlegs and a lot of great cover art.

I called our local radio station and told my friend DC, the morning jock, that I'd like to donate them to a listener who would appreciate them and give them a good home. He put it on the air, said that the first caller would get the cassettes and within minutes, a listener named "Spike" was over joyed to get them!

The following day DC gave away my vinyl collection and I'm glad they will have a home where they will be listened to.

Two Quick Judo-Joy-Chops

I was on my way to the post office. I hadn’t found a parking place on my first pass up the street and was now making a left turn into a small parking lot in order to loop back towards the post office, in effect accomplishing a U-turn legally. It’s a tight space and there’s a mail box set up right inside the lot so people can pull in, roll down their window and reach out to stick a letter into the box without getting out of their cars. As I completed my turn into the lot, I saw a four-door Buick pulled up alongside the mailbox in front of me. I would be delayed while the driver ahead reached out to put mail into the mail slot. I happened to be in a high-energy mode and at first was impatient as I watched the hand tentatively trying to get a small ... Read Full Story >>

The Egg & Spoon Race

My friend & I were at the school games. Her son Andrew has cerebal palsy but he was insistent that he was going in the races. In the flat race he ran well, but came in last.

In a short pace of time the egg & spoon race was on.

What we saw next brought tears to our eyes.

The school principle handed Andrew his the spoon with the egg glued onto it. Needless to say Andrew came in at the Number 1 and our tears were mixed with laughter and so much joy.

An act of kindness makes us all winners.

A Tank Of Gas

Many years ago a kind farmer bought  a tank of gas for a stranded mom with 2 children.  He wouldnt accept any money and just smiled, waved and said pass it on to someone else.  And so a few weeks ago as my husband and I were filling up our car with a coupon for 99 cents a gallon, I went in to pay and got into a long line.  I could see up ahead a young man who was having some kind of problem and realized he had misunderstood the coupon and thought it was 99 cents to fill his small truck.  Everyone was saying, "99 cents a gallon is unbelieveable - they cant give the gas away."  He was embarressed and was just calling his wife when I got to the counter.  He said to his wife, "Just come down cuz I dont have that much on me."  I ... Read Full Story >>

A Precious Piece of Family History

I'm a bit of a family historian (not that we have much of a history outside coal mining in Scotland and farming in Ireland.) One of my most precious possessions, which probably dates from about 1915, is a family portrait. My great grandmother sits on a chair all stiff and formal with her brood of babies around her feet and on her knees. My great grandfather stands behind her the picture of authorirty, but he is actually standing on "tin" legs after an accident with a railway truck. One-by-one the people in the picture left this world. My gran died aged 82, but in this picture she is about 3 forever. One of her sisters, Lena, outlived all her siblings by quite some way.  Going to visit Lena not long before she died it occurred to me that she might not have seen this picture for many decades. So I made a copy, framed ... Read Full Story >>

A New Attitude Makes All the Difference

I hated closing.  I'm a person who claims that I do not hate, but I hated closing.  Period.  And by that I mean the closing shift at Domino's.  We close at 11pm on weeknights and midnight on weekends.  And I HATED closing.  I hated it because we close at 11pm, but people call late at night and then we have to clean up and do all the paperwork, etc.  So, I never get to leave until 11:30-12:00.  It got to the point where I didn't like customers who called after 10pm.  That felt bad.  I got bitter and angry inside. But alas, I decided I needed to change myself and little by little I developed a new attitude.  Now when I go in to close, instead of saying we close at 11, but (wah-wah)  I won't get to leave till 11:45 and I won't get home till 12:30, I simply say I work till midnight.  Then, ... Read Full Story >>

A New Old Friend

My daughter and I have recently moved across the country to the West Coast. I know no-one here other than my sister and her husband. I started feeling a little lonley and missing my friends and family back east. I have now started to go back to college and have been enjoying getting the education I should have gotten long ago. I'm an extrovert and I love to talk, that's why I enjoy going to school so much because it gives me the opportunity to meet new and different people. I think you learn the most from people and life experiences. I love talking with and learning about people from different walks of life, different religions, and age groups. Children and the elderly are the most interesting to me. Children look at everything with eyes full of wonder. The elderly have been there, done most of it, and can tell you all about it. You can learn so ... Read Full Story >>

The Waffle House Waitress

I was recently traveling with a friend when we decided to get something to eat. Being a huge Waffle House fan, we scouted out the area we were in, and found one. If you have never been in one, or have never heard of it, Waffle House is kinda like a chain of diners that serve the best waffles around! They won't be found at the top of any Zagat's list of Fine dining, but they are my favorite! Our waitress took a while to take our order, asking the same questions a few times. We made a few substitutions and "complicated" the order, but she wrote it all down. When the orders came, they were not right. When the bill came, it was not right either. The only thing that was right was the taste of the food and the smile of the waitress. She may not ... Read Full Story >>

Love is the New Religion

On the surface of the world right now there is war and violence and things seem dark But calmly and quietly, at the same time, something else is happening underground An inner revolution is taking place and certain individuals are being called to a higher light It is a silent revolution From the inside out From the ground up It is time for me to reveal myself I am an embedded agent of a secret, undercover Clandestine Global operation A spiritual conspiracy We have sleeper cells in every nation on the planet You won't see us on the T.V. You won't read about us in the newspaper You won't hear about us on the radio We don't seek any glory We don't wear any uniform We come in all shapes and sizes Colors and styles Most of us work anonymously We are quietly working behind the scenes in every country and culture of the world Cities big and small, mountains and valleys, in farms and villages, tribes and remote islands You ... Read Full Story >>

Top 10 Kindness Stories of 2012 - Story #1 - My Sneaky Mirror Of Kindness

High school is always full of girls who have little self-confidence and lots of negative thoughts relating to self-image. so, one lunch break, I did something to help!

The Hobbling Homeless Man

I was shopping in town when I saw a man aged about 30 hobbling down the road. He didn't have any possessions with him but I guessed he was homeless and that he seemed to have pain in his leg.  I watched him for a few minutes but was unable to help that day.   All that evening I thought about him and wondered about his life and his story. Going to bed I decided that if our paths crossed again I would help him.   I saw him the very next day! He stopped and asked a young woman in front of me for some cash. She looked surprised and not very happy to be stopped. She gave him a few coins.   I carried on walking behind and saw him drop the money into a charity box.   I quickly went to the cash machine to get some money whilst trying to watch where he went.   With cash ... Read Full Story >>

Meeting Anger With Kindness

From 1993 through 1998 I was a vendor for Chevrolet dealearships. Each week I would take a look at their used cars that were for sale. I would fix cracks in leather, cigarette burns in fabric,  re-color carpets that had stains, repair windshields that had been hit by a rock, etc. Every week I would walk into this specific Chevrolet dealer's used car lot  to see what the used cars needed in the way of repairs. The general manager's wife was named Cindy. Cindy was always very rude,  treating me like I was below her or that she was better than me.  I was always upbeat, possitive and kind, but that never seemed to work with her.  One day she accused me of charging  her to dye the carpet in a mini-van that had a stain in the carpet.  She had driven the van for the weekend and said the stain was not there.  Just trying to continually be agressive, and negitive without ... Read Full Story >>

Jackpot of Kindness from an unlikely source

When I read a post about taking someone to the movies, I was reminded of something that happened a couple of years ago. I used to drink Coca-cola and they had a contest where there was a code inside the bottle cap. You went to a website and entered the code and maybe you won something. I won some free cokes. But then, I won the Grand Prize! I was surprised and pleased. The grand prize was free movies for a year!! What that turned out to be was that the company sent me 52 admission tickets for a local movie theater chain -- they figured one movie a week was what free movies for a year meant. All of the tickets had expiration dates later than a year from the day I received them. I used quite a few taking friends to movies we all wanted to see. But the best thing I did ... Read Full Story >>

A Long Way From Iraq

A family of Iraqis live in my neighborhood. The father of the family served as an interpreter for the American Forces for ten years.   When the Americans were withdrawing they gave my friend's family visas to come to America. They didn't give them much else. Two years before Ali, my friend, came to the USA he was able to get two of his sons out of Iraq and they got jobs at Walmart and ATT. They have good English skills and are college educated.   My friend Ali is in his 60s and has worked as an English/Arabic interpreter much of his life. He has worked for some very important international companies doing business in the Middle East. But here in America he is just an old Muslim man trying to get a job.   After more than a year of trying he has finally got a job as a security guard ... Read Full Story >>

The Receptionist's Smile

Being chronically ill, I have made quite a few visits to the doctor's office.

Over the visits, I've noticed how big a difference it makes when the receptionist greets me with a smile and a pleasant tone. It just makes my entire day a little better, and the illness a little easier to bear! Plus, it puts me in a mood to smile at other people and spread the joy.

While thinking about this, I had a follow-up thought: I wish these individuals, who are only bypassers in my life, knew how much their smiles actually mean to me!

And as soon as I had the thought, I realized that it is possible-- I can tell them. :)

So I gathered some materials, sat down, and wrote cards to all the different offices-- from taxi companies to doctors' offices-- thanking them for being so pleasant and helpful. As soon as I finished, I eagerly mailed them off.

Though I won't be there to see their faces when they read the cards, I hope they feel appreciated and that the notes put smiles on their faces the way they put a smile on mine!

Teaching Kindness, Staying Kind

The other day I decided to teach my son about the power of small acts of kindness.  He had won some lollies in a prize machine in the local supermarket, so I asked him if he would like to share his win with the next child that walks past.  He was hesitant because he is a shy young man but said yes after I encouraged him a bit. A father and his child were nearby.  I approached the father and asked if my son could give his daughter a lolly that he had won.  The father looked at me sideways and was unsure what to say.  I further explained how I was coaching my son about the power of kindness.  Eventually he said it was okay. We approached his daughter ... who wouldn’t accept the lollies!  She too was looking at us sideways with uncertainty!  At this stage my son was rather ... Read Full Story >>