Stories by livelife01 (3 matches)

A Tale of Two Tags

Some months ago, my husband and I had tried tagging some military personnel and it had not materialized. Imagine our surprise when we landed at the same airport last month and noticed that there were military personnel waiting around in order to be shipped to some frontier. We literally rubbed our hands with glee and decided to tag them - and hopefully manage to complete it. Here is the story of the two tags - and both the tags (irrespective of the end result) left a great impact on us. Tag 1 (6  months ago): It was the end of our vacation and while we were waiting at the airport for our flight home, we noticed that there were a lot of military personnel waiting to be shipped out.  We had a thought - why don't we tag them with all with a beverage of their choice before they boarded their special flight. So we ... Read Full Story >>

Re-Energised By A Small Act of Kindness

We had gone to another town for a wedding. It had been a long drive, and before going to the wedding hall, we decided to stop at a relative's home to freshen up. On the way to the stairs, I noticed a very old cobbler repairing some shoes.  He gave a heart smile and warm greetings to everyone who passed by him. I returned his greetings and walked up the stairs trying to think whether there was anything to eat in the car that I could offer him on the way back.

While coming down the stairs after freshening up, I decided that I would stop and talk to him and give him some cash instead. That way, he could purchase what he would like for himself and/or his family. So while the others went ahead, I stopped by where he sat, chatted with him for some minutes, and enjoyed his huge grin. I then gave him 500 rupees, saying it was a small token of appreciation from the world to him to use as he sees fit. He immediately burst into another huge smile, and blessed all :).

It made me forget my tiredness from the long journey and gave me a new lease of energy to attend the wedding and endure the long drive back home.

Trading Tokens and Enjoying a Longer Wait

I was in Cambridge a couple of months ago and wanted to mail some inspiring books to this wonderful person I have known for a long time. I have had the privilege of volunteering with her and learning from her infectious enthusiasm. So the books were a gift to her to read and pass along in a pay-it-forward mode. 

The queue in the post office was rather long, and I had picked a token for my turn,  number 29, and was sitting in a vacant seat. I saw this elderly lady walk in sometime later and pick a token, which was number 55. I knew that she would have a wait of at least an hour, while my token was due to be called in another 5-10 minutes. So I walked to where she was sitting and asked her if she would like to exchange tokens with me as she would then have a shorter wait. She gave me the most beautiful smile, exchanged her token with mine and thanked me in the softest voice I have heard.

The additional one hour wait I had was definitely worth it !!!!