The neighbor who shoveled everyone’s driveway every winter never got an award. Everyone on that street still talks about him.

Recognition and impact are measured on different scales. The work that holds a place together tends to be unglamorous, repeated and invisible to anyone keeping score, which is exactly why the people who lived near it remember. No ceremony marks it, and yet it outlasts most things that get ceremonies.

Look for the small repeated kindness available to you where you live or work. Do it more than once, because the repetition is the whole substance of it. And when you spot someone else doing that quiet job, say so directly, since nobody else is going to.