The bus driver who waited while you sprinted didn’t have to. Remember that version of kindness.
GRATITUDE
WHAT THIS MEANS
Somebody with no obligation to you chose a small inconvenience on your behalf. That is the shape of ordinary kindness: cheap for the giver, oddly large for whoever receives it, and entirely optional. It usually goes unacknowledged, because it takes four seconds and then everyone moves on. Those four seconds are most of what makes a place livable.
Keep a mental file of the ones done for you, then copy them. Hold a door, save a seat, wait the extra moment. You will never know which one lands hard for a person having a bad day, and that is fine.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Who held a door or bus for you recently?
MORE IN GRATITUDE & PRESENCE
- Writing down good things isn’t corny. It’s keeping receipts for the days your brain says nothing went right.
- Be the one who stays to help clean up after the party. You’ll learn who the real ones are, because they’re there too.
- Get far enough from the city lights and the sky reminds you how much you’ve been missing.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.