Perfect Strangers
Start a habit of kindness that will be a tradition a hundred years from now, with no one really knowing where it came from!
Stick up for strangers.
Speak up. If you see someone being picked on with racist jokes etc., let the perpetrators know loudly and clearly that they are in the wrong. Many bullies feel that if they are not corrected, others feel the same way they do. Unfortunately, this thought is also shared by their victims. I’ve had many experiences of calling bullies on their ranting, just to have them turn tail and cowardly recant!
Always leave an extra quarter on top of a pay phone. You never know who’ll need it. Or when.
Always carry little gifts with you - candy, pocketbooks, scarves, cookies, handmade jewellery, etc. Whenever you go out, make it a mission to find the person who fits each gift, and give it to them.
If you come to a website that looks like it needs some help with proofreading, email them and offer your services for free; especially if they do work for charitable causes. Usually volunteers with no time and hardly any feedback run these organizations, so any help they receive is very welcome.
If you buy something from a vending machine, either leave money in the machine, or leave a goodie (juice, bus ticket etc.) in the tray at the bottom.
Go to the airport with maps and look for confused people. Don’t forget to hand them a card with your name on it if they have more questions later. At the very least, you just might get some interesting postcards when they get home!
Go out with a bag full of old books and leave them in appropriate places, i.e. books on cat care in the pet food section of the supermarket, or novels in the laundromat. Take your new magazines after you’ve read them and leave them in your doctor’s office.
If you make handmade bracelets, hair catches etc., make up 26 of them with a different letter of the alphabet on each. Carry them in your purse and give them to preschoolers, teenagers (waitresses, students) you meet. As soon as you know someone’s name, you’ll have something to give them!
Hold a widely-advertised garage/bake sale. When people come to haggle over the price, hold firm for your bottom figure… nothing. Zip, nada, doodah. It’s amazing how so many people cannot accept this!
Make up “smile” cards and hand them out to perfect strangers who look like they’re having an especially trying day.
Always carry jumper cables, extra gas, extra water, and a first aid kit in your car. You never know when they’ll be needed, or by whom.
Always carry an extra guidebook, bus schedule, and map in your purse, to give to tourists who ask for directions. If you like to buy those big books of coupons, give them coupons to the attractions they are going to go see. You’re not going to USE all of those coupons anyway, are you?
Knit a classy scarf for someone you barely know (the paperboy, a waitress, the dental receptionist) and make sure his or her initial is on it.
The next time you’re buying stamps, leave an extra book of them for distribution behind the counter.
If you have to travel down a highway to go to work, sow packets of wildflowers out the window. That way, everyone will have something to make their drive more interesting next year.
If you have moved into a place that has an obviously-loved garden in the back, make sure you send pictures of it and maybe even seeds to the former tenants, just to let them know you love their garden as much as they did, and are working hard to maintain it. Who knows? They might even write back with some good suggestions based on their experience!
If you are moving, leave your old home furbished with the little things that make life easy… like some tp in the bathroom, hangers in the closet, a welcoming note, maybe even a coin under the welcome mat. Something that makes a body feel at home.
Be patient. I know this seems like a small deed, but it really requires a great deal of effort! The next time some transit stranger falls asleep on your new blouse, drooling, or the idiot at work loses yet another of your valuable files, use the occasion to learn patience. My motto is: if it can be fixed, why worry? And if it can’t be fixed, why worry about that either!?
Always leave an extra umbrella at the bus stop/subway entrance/apartment lobby on rainy days.
Make up a bunch of lovely little cards that say ‘You are beautiful just the way you are… don’t change!’ Leave them absolutely everywhere… beside fashion magazines, in gyms, stuck into dressing room mirrors, propped up on makeup counters etc.
Get some sidewalk chalk. Every dry day, get up early and write something motivational and uplifting on the sidewalk for the sleepy people going to work. This works for school kids, too!
Forget unkindnesses regularly. That unpleasant joke, rude comment, flippant service or nasty greediness that comes your way occasionally will not even be remembered a week from now… so why waste your time stewing about it now? Usually, random rudenesses have nothing to do with you personally, anyway!
If you get stuck in a line (and who hasn’t?) talk to the person in front of you casually. Be careful with this one because a lot of people get cranky if they have to wait. Just comment on their darling kids, make a joke, compliment them on their clothes… keep it light and breezy so that (for the two of you at least) the line might move a little faster!
Leave a book of transit tickets in the motor vehicle office. That way, people who have recently lost their licenses will have some way to get to work.
Hand out maps to new students at a university on the first day. No matter how many maps get included with registration forms, it always makes a big difference to someone having a panic attack to ask a real human being for directions.
If you regularly battle bumper to bumper traffic, you know how boring and frustrating it can be to sit and wait to move. Even if you can’t make the line move any faster, at least make sure you have a frequent change of fun bumper stickers on your car to lighten the mood of the guy behind you.
If you are one of those parents who sit out in the driveway to watch over your kids as they’re biking/playing street hockey/horsing around in the front yard, make it a point to greet the people walking by. You might be the only person to exchange a kind word with them that day! You would be amazed at how many people are just aching to be friendly but they don’t get a chance to be.
Look through the obits and send condolence cards to all of the bereaved families listed, even if you didn’t know the person. Every death lessens all of us. Look back far enough, and you’ll see that we’re all related somehow!
If you have a special café you like to visit, create a special anonymous account there for free coffees. How much does it cost to pay for a few more cups?
Pull open the phone book and pick a name at random. Send them flowers with a nice encouraging note attached… anonymously. This can be so much fun you may want to make it a sort of hobby (if you have the means to indulge it, of course)!
If you have rented a cabin for your vacation, leave it with some things for the next people along – doesn’t need to be fancy – just a phone card on the table, a couple of cans of beans in the cupboard or a pack of matches on the mantelpiece is enough.
Buy a book of stamps and affix them to postcards, then leave them in hotel lobbies or tour buses. People on whirlwind tours rarely have time to write!
Keep an eye out for immigrants. You could make up a small xeroxed book of common phrases and hand them out to immigrants you meet in your daily travels, if they don’t mind; the taxi driver, counterperson, sanitation worker or daycare worker that seems to be struggling with language. Your little booklet could be the bridge to understanding they’ve been looking for!
Smile. Even if you have nothing to give and you feel down, just smiling at people will hearten both you and them. Smile at people on the bus. Smile at the counterperson who hands you your morning coffee. Smile at people in the elevator. For some, this could be the only kindness they experience all day. Make someone’s day, and smile!
Refuse hatred. Just because someone hates you doesn’t mean that you have to hate them back! If someone is screaming abuse at you, smile and give them a compliment. If nothing else, at least it will stop them in their tracks!
Take the lost mitts left hanging on newspaper boxes and park benches, if they’ve been sitting there for a couple of days, and knit matching mitts. Attach with a crocheted cord, and replace the mitts where you found them.
Go clean the fallen garbage around the dumpster. Nobody wants to do it, but everybody steps over it everyday!
If there is a particular viewpoint of beauty in your neighbourhood, make up a ‘stop and look’ card to place on it. How often we walk past the things that would refresh our hearts and give us pleasure!
You know those wonderful old books that you’ve read a million times? Maybe it’s time to pass the torch and donate them to your local library. Budgets everywhere are tight, and i don’t know of any library in existence that will refuse a donation. Don’t forget school libraries!
If you see someone struggling with their groceries, smile and take a couple of bags for them. Take them home for them, even if you have to take another subway or bus. Do this particularly if they are old.
If someone asks you where the nearest bus stop is, don’t draw them a map in the air. Smile and say you’re going that way, even if you have three preschoolers and a million things to do. It’s only a two-minute walk anyway, right? Stand with them until you see them safely on board the bus.