Small Acts of Kindness

I wanted to get a watch repaired today. It was a minor repair, the technician did it for free. I am very happy about this, he actually enhanced my day.

Now, we may say that we must all engage in such small acts of kindness - we call them small because maybe they cost us less effort. But I am thinking that no act can really be 'small' because the decision to engage in any kindness is always a BIG thing, especially when we are all living with a belief of scarcity of everything we have.

For example, insisting that the vendor accept more than he has charged us, because he has wrongly calculated the prices. Maybe he undercharged me by a very small amount (as in today's case), or undercharged a big sum (as in yesterday's waterbottles' case). I stood to gain in both scenarios. But it took me courage to decide against my autotendency to let the calculating mistakes be so that I benefited from it. It is THAT decision that was big.

Another thing- the guy who presses our clothes, today, would have made a loss of just 2 bucks had I not insisted on the right bill. The fact that a customer chose to be honest for his interest, must have touched him a great deal.

So an act of kindness is big, if the courage or values behind it are big, and if the result is big. And in most cases, this is so.

If you engage in any kindness, pat yourself. It is a big deal. And if someone's been kind to you, don't take that lightly either.