A stranger complimented your shoes once and it carried you all week. Be that stranger.

Small kindnesses from strangers land oddly hard, because nothing is owed and nothing is wanted, so the goodwill reads as genuine. Something that cost one person four seconds can sit inside another person’s whole week. You have almost certainly been on the receiving end of this and never mentioned it.

Say the nice thing when you think it, to whoever is in the lift or the queue or the next seat. Be specific, keep it short, expect nothing back. It costs you nothing you will miss and occasionally arrives on somebody’s worst day.