Stories of Kindness from Around the World

This is my first story and I'm very excited to share. As a young teen, life can be tough when it comes to exclusion, especially when it comes to someone deemed "uncool."  To tell the truth, even as a leadership student, I was unmotivated to change someone's life since it could cost me my ranking. Sadly, in that week, my life went spiraling down when someone kicked me out of my group and told everyone else to ignore me. It was then that the truth hit me, that I didn't know how much exclusion can hurt.

I had always been friendly with Patricia (as I will not take her real name), but never willing to be close friends with her and lift her up. I was always nice, just not very motivated. The week that I was kicked out of my group, though, I felt this hurt and throbbing agony of being trodden on. I felt terrible for myself, but more so for Patricia, whom I had seen go through this for weeks on end. Patricia seemed to have been cast out for years now. Patricia was not mean, and as a newcomer to the school, I didn't understand why she was alienated until I heard the way she talked -- the way that an average fourth grader would speak to her peers.

This tore me up inside -- now months later -- to see how badly she must have felt. Then it hit me -- why shouldn't I help? Though I had once been afraid, I no longer withdrew, and walked up to her in the hallway with a beaming hi.  The result....SHE LOOKED AWAY!!! It wasn't like the positive stories at all since she withdrew from my reaching out.  Frustrated by this, I went to the counselor and talked about Patricia, asking for ways to help her. I organized a group in Leadership in order to help her. Then my Leadership teacher showed me Smile Cards, and our current plan is to leave challenges on them. Her challenge will be to make 5 new friends.

I plan to have our secret group meet Patricia, have her join our friend circle, and then, of course, pass on the Smile Cards! I was planning on buying some, but then I thought that I should use this post for karma points to pay for them. "Pay for kindness with a thought," which sounds perfect to me. :) Please comment for feedback & suggestions or to give it a smiley face!  Thank you all.