Search Results for 'popular' (3005 matches)

Stranger On The Train

I had to visit my sister in another town because her husband was very ill. My whole family could not go because school was in session. My children stayed back in their father's care, except for the youngest, who was just a year old. I was nervous taking a train journey alone with my daughter. I knew that I had to go, so I gathered all my courage and boarded the train. After waving goodbye to my husband, I settled down. There were three other passengers in that compartment. Two of them were quite elderly, while one was a young man. My daughter was crying, missing her dad. I tried to console her, but to no avail. I tried giving her water, then some biscuits, but her crying would not cease. By this time I was getting worried about the disturbance being caused to the others. One of the oldies was ... Read Full Story >>

My Smile Deck Adventure

I have received a few Smile Decks and decided I would use one.    I read through the cards and love all the different ideas. I try to make sure I do at least one random act of kindness each week and thought the Smile Deck could help me with that!   There are many ways you can use the cards. Each suite has a different focus and they get progressively more challenging the higher you go. Since I have been committed to practicing kindness I figured I would just shuffle the deck and every few days pull one out and do whatever it says.    So that is what I did!    Yesterday I had the eight of hearts, which asks you to acknowledge an act of kindness by someone else and thank them. I have been the recipient of an act of kindness in the past week so this was a perfect card!    I put together a ... Read Full Story >>

Garden Of Blessings

There’s a park that runs through the centre of Edinburgh. Sitting beneath Edinburgh Castle, the Princes Street Gardens are full of families, sunbathers and, of course, ice cream stands on sunny days.  The weekend my wife and I spent in Edinburgh was scorching. We had an amazing time, seeing the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and being entertained by street performers along the Royal Mile, all rehearsing their acts for the Edinburgh Festival of the Arts. Well, all good things must come to an end. So, we packed our bags and left the hotel. The gardens were empty at this time of day so we decided to walk through them on the way to the station.  That’s when I saw the old fellow. Picture a “salty old sea-dog” with deeply lined face and bushy white beard. He was wearing the tattered remains of several coats, which seemed to be lined with black, plastic bin ... Read Full Story >>

Top 10 Kindness Stories of 2012, Story #3 - Girl Gets Up At 5AM To Decorate Her Entire Street

As part of her personal mission to try to bring some unexpected cheer to her neighbors, UK-based Zoe Green—who goes by the moniker Pea Green Girl—got up at 5 one April morning, or what she calls “Happy Street Day”, to decorate her entire street.  Along Shelbourne Road, she hung balloons at a bus shelter, post-box and telephone booth; stuck Post-Its with encouraging messages on a telephone pole; and pasted a “Good Morning!” sign along the bridge so that people who drove under it could see the greeting.  Green’s little project aimed to inspire people, and it must’ve brightened up someone else’s day—and it was her tiny step to changing the world, one smile at a time.  “I don’t intend to change the world, but I know that if you brighten one person’s day, they are highly likely to brighten someone else’s day,” she wrote on her blog.  If you left your house one morning and walked down the street to ... Read Full Story >>

Helping a Person in Need

A homeless person was begging in a shopping mall for money and food. He asked me as well, and at first I declined.  

Then, he asked me if I was going to the grocery store located below, and that gave me a thought.  I went back to find him, and when I finally did, I offered to buy him food from the grocery store.  

I went shopping with this guy. He said to me that hadn't eaten for 2 days.  He also mentioned that he might get an appartement from an organization in my country that provides help and guidance to those in need.  

I said to him that he could buy for 5 euro and he did. He bought a loaf of bread, some yoghurt, cheese to put on the bread and some chocolate.

Even though the chocolate made the total a little over 5 euro, I couldn't lelt him put it back and told him to take what he wanted. 

He was so glad I did this for him and was so thankfull! 

Greetings,

Cirrus

Teaching Kindness, Staying Kind

The other day I decided to teach my son about the power of small acts of kindness.  He had won some lollies in a prize machine in the local supermarket, so I asked him if he would like to share his win with the next child that walks past.  He was hesitant because he is a shy young man but said yes after I encouraged him a bit. A father and his child were nearby.  I approached the father and asked if my son could give his daughter a lolly that he had won.  The father looked at me sideways and was unsure what to say.  I further explained how I was coaching my son about the power of kindness.  Eventually he said it was okay. We approached his daughter ... who wouldn’t accept the lollies!  She too was looking at us sideways with uncertainty!  At this stage my son was rather ... Read Full Story >>

When Blessings Come Home To Roost

I was recently invited to dinner by a friend. During the meal, the manager  of the restaurant came over and said that our meal was free. He stood there smiling at me and there was an air of familiarity about him but I couldn't quite place him. Finally I asked him if he knew me. He laughed and said I had probably forgotten him, but that I had changed his life.  My friend was quite curious and asked him how I had done this. He said that twelve years ago he was in recovery and I was teaching a stress management class that was mandatory for him to take in order to live in recovery housing.  I asked the group what their number one stress was and most, including him, had said it was their bosses. He said I listened carefully to everyone and then took a chair and placed it in the center of ... Read Full Story >>

One Garbage Bag at a Time

I live in an apartment building where there are several elderly people and other tenants that are on a low or fixed income. There is a older gentleman neighbor of mine that is always willing to help out and go out of his way to help anyone in need. A few weeks ago, I was taking a large amount of trash out to the dumpster. This neighbor saw me and stopped to help me as he was taking out his own trash. When we got to the dumpster, he dumped his trash out of the bag. However, he kept his trash bag. "Why don't you throw the trash bag away?" I asked him. He replied that he has been using the same trash bag for a couple of months because he really didn't have money to spare to buy new ones. This immediately made me tear up. I thought about how we can ... Read Full Story >>

How A Bookstore Can Change Your Life

[by Jeremy Mercer, Ode, Nov 2007] One of the more romantic literary notions is that a book can change a person’s life. Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Ford, for instance, claims Walker Percy’s novel The Moviegoer made Ford the author he is today. Or a book can have more immediate consequences for people, such as my grade-school friend who read My Side of the Mountain and promptly ran away from home with nothing but a penknife and a ball of twine. If a book can change your life, a bookstore can utterly transform it. In my case, I found one, or perhaps it found me, at a critical juncture when I was turning my back on everything I had known. It was a damp January day in 2000 when I discovered the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris. I had left my home in Canada a month earlier, having burned out in ... Read Full Story >>

Shopping Cart Outside A Car Door

A few weeks ago, I went to my usual retail therapy session at the local Target store. On my way to the front door, I noticed that there was a car parked by the front doors facing the wrong direction but with the passenger door open.  A woman came out of the driver side and waited by the passenger door, and out came a frail little old lady walking very slowly and using the shopping cart as as walker.  As she got closer to the passenger door, the driver took her by the hand to help her in the car and then I noticed that she had this look of uneasiness looking at the cart as if thinking, "Oh great, now what do I do with this?"  She had to put the lady in the car, drop off the cart in its place, go to the other side of her car, drive out ... Read Full Story >>

The Empty Seat Next to Mine

I've been holding on to a good bunch of Smile Cards for some time now and decided it was about time I started using them more often!  Any opportunity I get, no matter how big or small I am going to do an act of kindness and encourage the pay-it-forward idea. The other day I attended a large business event.  I was seated in a row of seats where all chairs were taken except for one chair next to me.  It was the only good viewing spot left in the room.  There were other chairs available, but they were a distance away and to the side of the room.  A few minutes later, two young men stood near me gazing the auditorium for the best seats they could find.  "How many seats do you need?" I inquired.  "Two," one of them replied.  I flashed back to my Smile Card resolution and immediately got up.  "Here, you can my seat and the ... Read Full Story >>

Jackpot of Kindness from an unlikely source

When I read a post about taking someone to the movies, I was reminded of something that happened a couple of years ago. I used to drink Coca-cola and they had a contest where there was a code inside the bottle cap. You went to a website and entered the code and maybe you won something. I won some free cokes. But then, I won the Grand Prize! I was surprised and pleased. The grand prize was free movies for a year!! What that turned out to be was that the company sent me 52 admission tickets for a local movie theater chain -- they figured one movie a week was what free movies for a year meant. All of the tickets had expiration dates later than a year from the day I received them. I used quite a few taking friends to movies we all wanted to see. But the best thing I did ... Read Full Story >>

A Tank Of Gas

Many years ago a kind farmer bought  a tank of gas for a stranded mom with 2 children.  He wouldnt accept any money and just smiled, waved and said pass it on to someone else.  And so a few weeks ago as my husband and I were filling up our car with a coupon for 99 cents a gallon, I went in to pay and got into a long line.  I could see up ahead a young man who was having some kind of problem and realized he had misunderstood the coupon and thought it was 99 cents to fill his small truck.  Everyone was saying, "99 cents a gallon is unbelieveable - they cant give the gas away."  He was embarressed and was just calling his wife when I got to the counter.  He said to his wife, "Just come down cuz I dont have that much on me."  I ... Read Full Story >>

Just 2 Quarters Worth Of Kindness

This morning there was a young man roaming the campus. He comes from one of the half-way drug rehab/mental illness houses on the surrounding streets. He's quiet, polite, and I think very lonely, and bored. I saw him earlier standing at the soda vending machines, jiggling change in his pockets. It appeared he didn't have enough money for a soda at $1.50. I returned from the adjacent building and he was bending down and looking for dropped change under the vending machines. Nothing to be found. I asked him how much money he needed and he replied "just 2 quarters". I reached into my pocket and magically, I had 2 lonely little quarters in my pocket. Gave it to him and he got his Dr. Pepper and flashed me the biggest smile. I asked him what he was going to eat for lunch. He said they have food back at ... Read Full Story >>

A Cookie In A Pocket!

After my son's soccer game, he ran over to me and said, "Mom, do you have a smile card?"  I said, "I think so." He is telling me to hurry up. We run to my purse and start digging through the million and one pockets and pouches. At last, I found one.

"What do you need it for?" I asked him.

He responds, "It is for Dad. I did not want my cookie and I know how he loves sugar. So, I quietly put it in his pocket while he was talking and now I want to add a smile card!"

His action and request melted my heart and filled me with joy.  Not to mention his Dad, who was brimming with joy as he bite into his warm chocolate chip cookie!

This will bring a whole new level of tagging to our household.  Secret Spy Operatives are now on the move!  Stay tuned for more. :)

Long Distance Thanksgiving Kindness

I work with a warm, fun-loving woman named Heather.  This year our boss asked a group of us to join his family on Thanksgiving.  Seated around the table, Heather said something had totally changed her the day before -- like she was walking in a new direction.  I listened and watched as her eyes welled with tears. Heather deals daily with people on the telephone.  She was speaking with a Veteran and asked if he was looking forward to Thanksgiving.  She was surprised when he said no, and asked why. He had been let go from his job more than a month before and was having a tough time making ends meet.  He shared how hard it was to feel powerless to provide a Thanksgiving meal for his wife and children.  She wished him a happy holiday and good luck.  There was nothing to do but say good-bye and hang-up. But I must do ... Read Full Story >>

Top 10 Kindness Stories of 2012 - Story #1 - My Sneaky Mirror Of Kindness

High school is always full of girls who have little self-confidence and lots of negative thoughts relating to self-image. so, one lunch break, I did something to help!

A Gallon Of Gas And A Gift Card

My husband and I have six children and things have been tight financially.  He is a brick-mason and as a barter deal he agreed to build a sign base for a man who owns a sign company in return for a basset hound puppy.    The job was at the front of a cemetery. As we were working beside a busy road we noticed a well dressed man walking towards us. I looked beyond him and saw his car was parked on the roadside. When he reached us he asked if we had any gas he could have.    My husband reached into the back of the truck and handed him a gas can with a gallon or two of gas and a funnel and told him it should be enough to get him to the nearest gas station.    The man thanked him and walked back to his car. About twenty minutes passed and we finished ... Read Full Story >>

An Unforgettable Taxi Stand Encounter

Recently, when I was waiting at a taxi stand, I noticed a young man engrossed in polishing shoes. I decided to get my shoes polished as well and as I was paying him I noticed on his left-hand some sort of old marking. That took me back to 2001 when I had, at this very taxi stand, consoled a boy who had an injury on his hand. 

The boy had told me that his step-mother had branded him with a hot iron because he had demanded more food. I had bought a chocolate for him and also two tins of shoe-polish and brushes because I was very supportive of his willingness to work and earn.

This time I paused just as I was about to pay him, looked deep into his eyes and asked him if he was Manoj. He raised his head, looked up at me and froze with moist eyes, refusing to accept my payment.  I, too, couldn't control my tears. I admired and complimented Manoj for his continued efforts to be independent and hardworking. I was very glad to learn that he was attending night school after he finished polishing shoes everyday -- that he was continuing to work hard to achieve his dreams.

A Professor's Unforgettable Motto

I was priviledged to join a college which not only created an environment for attaining professional qualification but also ensured that each and every student left the college an all-rounded individual. Most of the colleges in my country were commercially oriented and students tended to come in, have their lectures and off they went.  The lecturers in the college I attended always embraced higher ideals and many of the kids coming straight from high school would dread this college on the basis that it was strict. It was no bother to me anyway and I often looked forward to my college days. One of the lecturers, in particular, captured my attention most, not because of his tutorial skills but by the way he would always walk and leave no dirt or paper behind him. He would always bend over and pick any piece of paper lying on the floor and throw it to the nearest dustbin. On ... Read Full Story >>