How hard can it be to help one single person a day for one short week without thinking of the benefits one might possibly derive from these acts of kindness? One really should not expect that one tiny altruistic feat a day would be a problem for any person, but I actually found this to be harder then it sounds. This might in retrospective just be, because I was over-analyzing the minute task this in reality represents and having one of those weeks, where one just goes through the motions of daily life like a guinea pig in a wheel. I fear, however, that it goes a little deeper then that, but more on that at the end of the post. Let us first take a closer look at my new-found role as the Good Samaritan.
Monday: Called my mother, who I had not spoken to for a month.
I can’t really say that my mother and I share a close bond. She has, however, always in her own way tried to support my decisions in life, even though she often did not understand them, to put it mildly. The differences in our world view and interests, however, often results in us having short conversations about trivial matter such as the choice of color for the paint in her living room. This lack of common ground also results, not surprisingly, in an utter lack of communication for longs periods of time. This fact, let’s be honest, seems to pain her slightly more then me. Thus I, the long-lost son, decided to give her a call Monday evening just to talk to her for an hour and reassure her that I was still alive and doing well. I know without doubt that this made my mother feel better, and it really did not take much of an effort on my part.
Tuesday: Gave away my umbrella on a rainy day.
This one was maybe the easiest random act of kindness of the whole week. That Tuesday when I was passing a super market on my way home from work in the heavy rain I noticed a woman walking home from the store. Seeing as I was wearing a rainproof jacket I kindly asked her (and no she was not an HB10), if she would like to have my umbrella. She gratefully accepted, and we both went our separate ways.
Wednesday: Helped a colleague at work.
This is such a minute task that one has to wonder, why we don’t reach out to other people more often. But we just don’t seem to do! Sitting at work I noticed that one of my colleagues was having a bad day. Thus I decided to reach out and cheer the person up. It’s amazing how a short conversation about something funny and trivial can change a person’s mood within a couple of minutes.
Thursday: Helped a new neighbor move into my apartment building.
When I can home after work Thursday I noticed that a new person was moving into my apartment building. I offered to help, and the person was very happy to get a helping hand.
Friday: Gave my seat on the bus to a random person.
Friday I had a day of work and went into the center of town to do a little shopping. On my way home after my light shopping spree I was feeling lazy, thus I decide to take the bus, which turned out to be quite packed. I was, however lucky to find an empty seat, but right as I was about to sit down I noticed that another person had seen the very same seat. I polity offered the seat to the other person; my offer was accepted without a kind word.
Saturday: Helped my old man.
My father called me last week to ask what I was doing this weekend, since his girlfriend was away and he had not seen me for a couple of months. The plan was that he would take the train to the city where I live and then take the train back on Sunday. However, he then called me Saturday morning to ask, if I would not come over to his house to help him with a delivery of wood that needed to be chopped and stacked. I accepted and spent the day playing lumber jack. It was a nice experience and he seemed truly gratefully for my assistance, although we hardly spoke more then ten sentences the whole day (a man of few word is an understatement, when it come to my old man).
Sunday: An utter failure to perform a single altruistic act
Sadly, I failed on Sunday to do anything for anyone, since I did not leave my apartment or talk to anyone (what a poor effort, shame on me, bad man!).
Although all of the above mentioned acts helped every single person in question, I did notice a grain of salt in the little project. Having paid attention to my mental chatter lately, I did not fail to notice that my brain seemed to be hell-bent on flooding me with random injections of ego validation “you really are a nice person”, “what a good thing you just did” and so forth in the time period just after performing the act. This really upset me, since the essence of the undertaking was to perform an altruistic task, but my brain seemed to be “putting me into the picture” all the time, finding sneaky ways to stroke my frail, little ego. Why am I not able to commit an act of kindness without being concerned with how this relates me? My guess is that we are just so used to living in a “me-centered” universe that our brains can’t help but to inject us into the equation in some form. The scary thing is just that we hardly ever notice how deep our point of view runs.
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