Search Results for 'popular' (3455 matches)

Ask A Stranger If They Are Okay, And Mean It

While on a walk on the bike path, I noticed an older man riding his bike stop ahead of me and leaning over his handlebars. He appeared to be in pain.

As others just continued past him, I stopped and asked if he was okay. He said he was, and I said I was concerned since he looked like he was in pain.

He told me that he was and told me about how he had by-pass surgery not long ago and the doctors said it would be good for him to bike.

Once I was convinced he would be okay, I continued on. He road past me, thanking me for stopping.

It wasn't much but it felt good to do so. Even though he was a stranger, I was willing to stop to assist. This is my small act of kindness story for today.

Ichi-go Ichi-e, "one time, one meeting"

I had an "ichi-go ichi-e" meeting on the subway ride home this evening with the gal sitting next to me.

We talked all the way home (a 30-minute ride!). It was like talking with an old friend and many laughs were shared. At the end, I gifted her with a peace dove and shared a touch on her arm and blessed her as I got up to leave the subway car. 

Also had an "ichi-go ichie-e" with a 93-year-old woman sitting at the table next to ours in the restaurant. She was so spirited and joyful that I leaned over and asked her what was her "secret" ,

It's so easy to make friends – all it takes is reaching out with a smile and sharing conversation. Grateful.

Down In The Dumps

Very recently, I have had to move from my home and have been living in a hotel room with my son who is 17, my sister and her two children ages 4 and 8.  

Times have been hard and I have been still going to work and pretending every day that it is no big deal, that we will get through this.  But today I was really down until I logged on to this site .... and read everyone's stories!  It just brightened up my day.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank each and everyone  for their acts of kindness.

Even though times are hard for me right now, I am still going everyday to help my mother who has colon cancer and try to help others with their problems.  Compared to some others, my problems are not so terrible.

Thanks for reminding me.

A Rainy Day At The Carwash

One rainy cold day, I decided I didn't care anymore if it had been raining all week, I just wanted my car clean. Besides, if it was nice and I had it washed, it surely would rain anyway!   I went to the carwash around 1 p.m. and sat there a minute before a young attendant came out.  He seemed somewhat dejected.   After I pulled out of the carwash, I didn't get far before a thought occurred to me -- I had a bag of homemade cookies; they were meant to be for a friend but knowing the compassionate nature of my friends, I figured he would understand.  So I immediately made a "U'ey" and pulled back into the carwash.  The attendant seemed even more surprised to see me, again!   With a big smile, I handed him the cookies and the card that said "SMILE, you have been tagged" and he got a huge smile ... Read Full Story >>

The Man At The Market and His Mother's Wish

When the supermarket clerk tallied up my groceries, I was $12 over what I had on me. I began to remove items from the bags when another shopper handed me a $20 bill. “Please don’t put yourself out,” I told him.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “My mother is in the hospital with cancer. I visit her every day and bring her flowers. I went this morning, and she got mad at me for spending my money on more flowers. She demanded that I do something else with that money. So, here, please accept this. It is my mother’s flowers.”

No Better Time Than Now To Be Happy

"We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we're frustrated that the kids aren't old enough and we'll be more content when they are. After that, we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We'll certainly be happy when they're out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire. The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when? Your life will always be filled with challenges. It's best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway. One of my favorite quotes comes from Alfred D. Souza. He said, "For a long time it had seemed to me that ... Read Full Story >>

The Universe Gives Me What I Need When I Need It

I have enough of.....everything! I realized this morning as I was thinking about the idea of sufficient that the universe has given me exactly what I have needed when I needed it.

I am grateful for this revelation which made me want to give more of myself to everyone that I met. I was on the train and had the pleasure to speaking to three older women...who did not feel like strangers... for 55 minutes which gave me such joy because I am enough.

I am grateful for the love of my son who hugs me everyday and tells me he loves me....I have enough love. I am grateful for my friends because they are enough.....and I am grateful for the friends who are no longer friends because what they gave me was enough.

Thank you Universe for providing me with enough every single day.

Yard Sale Blessing

I passed by a yard sale and decided to stop and see what the lady was selling. The woman selling her belongings began to tell me about how hard times were for her. She was an elderly lady with numerous health problems.

I wanted so much to buy something from her because I could tell she was having a hard time financially. I was expecting to spend a few dollars until she mentioned to me that she had to take gas out of her sister's lawnmower to put in her car to get to the yard sale location. That broke my heart.

At that moment I knew I had to do all I could to help her. I asked her what all of her stuff would be worth that she was trying to sell to which she replied " $75.00."

I gave her the money and asked her to donate the items that she did not want to Goodwill. She began to cry and thanked me ever so much. That made my day. It felt good to be able to help her out.



 

Lost and Found: A Ten Dollar Bill

Last week I was visiting my best friend in Cincinnati.  One morning as we walked to breakfast, I spotted a piece of paper on the street and it turned out to be a $10 bill!  I was determined to use it as a special treat and carried it around for two days as we brainstormed ways to spend it. Since we are both huge fans of Dairy Queen, we decided to head there after dinner on my last day in town. His blizzard and my sundae came to $5, so when the employee handed me $5 bill as change, I turned around to the lady (and her son) behind me and said, "Here, this is for you!"  Seeing her startled reaction, I told her, "I found $10 the other day and since we've already received our treat, you guys should enjoy the rest!"  She was very gracious and took the money and ... Read Full Story >>

The Journey of a Spanish Smile Card

At 2:00am this past Friday morning, I received a text message from a friend, asking if I had any Smile Cards in Spanish. I immediately replied back saying I didn’t have any smile cards in Spanish. However, I also asked her why she wanted them specifically in Spanish and if smile cards in English would be acceptable. To my surprise, she said she had been one of the few selected by her high-school to go on a service trip to Nicaragua. She was going to spend four weeks in the villages teaching English to children & teens between the ages of five and eighteen. She wanted to share the concept of Smile Cards and kindness. By now, I was totally rocked and excited with hearing the news! :) So I decided to stop texting and call her to get more information about her service trip and ask when she was leaving for ... Read Full Story >>

Anything helps!

I was just stopping by the grocery store yesterday when I saw a guy outside with a sign that said, "Anything helps". As I turned my car around and he was just about to pack up and leave. I asked what he needed in the store. He asked for a can of ravioli. I picked him up ravioli, spaghetti, and beef stroganoff in the car. He seemed to be appreciative when I gave them to him. 

Heaven and Hell Story

A man spoke with the God about heaven and hell. The God said to the man, "Come, I will show you hell."

They entered a room where a group of people sat around a huge pot of stew. Everyone was famished, desperate and starving. Each held a spoon that reached the pot, but each spoon had a handle so much longer than their own arm that it could not be used to get the stew into their own mouths. The suffering was terrible.

"Come, now I will show you heaven," the God said after a while. They entered another room, identical to the first -- the pot of stew, the group of people, the same long-handled spoons. But there everyone was happy and well-nourished. "I don't understand," said the man. "Why are they happy here when they were miserable in the other room and everything was the same?"

The God smiled, "Ah, it is simple," he said. "Here they have learned to feed each other."

My Neighbor's Encounter With Death

My neighbor was diagnosed with Leukemia.  He was told that he didn't have many days to live. While most would get depressed, he was as happy as ever!  I was confused and decided to ask him why. He was gardening when I finally asked the question.  With a smile, he responded, "Why be angry at the world when we are blessed with the knowledge of our death?  Why not embrace it give back something to our society?" The next day, I read in the newspaper that he was among the many who volunteered to help out the poverty stricken people in South Africa. He was already packing when I entered his house.  He said he want to go and enjoy the last few moments of his life helping people.   With his usual wisdom, he also noted, "It's better to live a life happily in the short amount of time then to live a ... Read Full Story >>

Inspiring Video Dedicated To HelpOthers.org!

I returned from a lovely holiday with my family and sang in a number of different concerts around the Bay of Plenty and Waikato regions in New Zealand. It is always such an honour seeing the joy on people's faces. One concert we sang at was at a local rest-home/retirement village.  It was nice to see 100 elderly people so happy after we, "The Short Sistars," had sung.  It was so wonderful to see so many happy faces, all saying they want us to come back and sing again soon. So next Uni holidays the managers have invited us to come and perform again.  When our music fills the air, I love seeing these elderly people, who aren't in the best of health, and the beaming smiles appearing across their faces as if they feel at peace, maybe :) Then spent the second week down in Palmerston North..Visiting my sick Grandma in hospital everyday and looking after ... Read Full Story >>

I Stood By Her

I was coming back from home late at night in a 'Sharing' mini van. In Hyderabad, India, it is a cheap and quick mode of transport. The van drivers ply as many as 13 people at times in a vehicle which is built for the transport of 8 people. Our van was over crowded as well. People were getting off and on at many places. One girl signaled the driver to stop. She wriggled herself out of the van. While getting down, she tripped and fell. None of us noticed it, as it was dark. The driver was waiting for her to pay. It was then we saw that the girl was on her knees by the side of the road.  Another passenger and I got down and held her up.  Even in pain, she held up a note and asked us to pay the driver. The other passenger took the note ... Read Full Story >>

Meals To Go For Two Strangers

I was traveling through Nebraska on business and stopped off for something to eat.

As I was enjoying my meal a bus pulled in. The passengers disembarked to eat and use the rest-rooms, all except one women and a young boy. They just waited outside and I guessed they didn't have enough money for a meal. 

Tiny Seeds of Love

If seeds could think the one that fell into the builder's yard must have thought itself really unlucky! It had drifted down through chain link fencing, perhaps rolling off angle iron struts. Eventually it landed on the rubble and rubbish strewn soil - under two discarded metal gates, each of which would have needed two strong men to put them there. What chance did it have? What could grow under all that iron and debris? It should have given up. Instead it tried. It grew. A little shoot not big enough to move any of the rubbish around it, so it grew around it. But surely those great heavy gates would stop its efforts coming to anything. So it grew some more. It found spaces, grew through them, grew around them, and joined up on the other side of them. It kept going. Now there's a twelve foot tree in that space. Metal struts are trapped ... Read Full Story >>

Smile Cards Take Australia By A Storm

On Sunday 30th of September 2007 over 70 beautiful people in my life (family and friends) staged a Random Act of Kindness Project in our local community. We distributed over 600 SMILE cards on the day and the project is now set to be an annual event!   The day was perfect and we had plenty of volunteers. Over 30 businesses and individuals sponsored and donated and supported in one way or another. The day started off with a brief welcome from me, followed by a poem written by my 9 year old son about Random Acts of Kindness. He read this out aloud for all volunteers to hear which surely got everyone into the spirit of things! My gorgeous fiancé Steven took the reigns and lead the day.   We surprised our community with a free car and window wash, coffee, balloons, sweets, biscuits, gift vouchers, BBQ and lawn mowing. We also fed the homeless, visited local rest homes ... Read Full Story >>

Victim Treats His Mugger Right

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner. But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn. He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife. "He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says. As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm." The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing ... Read Full Story >>

Surprised by Smile

I was walking to a literary event in a cool autumn night in San Francisco. Ahead of me, a homeless-looking man, maybe in his 60s, was pushing an empty shopping cart on the sidewalk in my direction. He pushed the cart left and right, seeming to intentionally block the pedestrians. The pedestrian walking ahead of me avoided him. My heart raced. As I was about to walk to the side too, the cart-pushing man stopped and spoke loudly, "You can't pass by me without a smile!" I happened to be standing right there, surprised. I smiled. He gave me a big child-like smile! Or maybe it was him who smiled first. We looked at each other, eyes to eyes, as we passed by, smiling. We were both innocent kids again. Before he walked across the street, he turned and said,
"Have a great night!"
"You too!" I said.

A large dose of happy juice was shot into the chambers of my heart and then pumped out traveling all the way to my toes. Magic is everywhere if we allow it to happen.