Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
- Leo Buscaglia


Thursday, May 10, 2012

Blowing in the Wind

     Wow.  Today was a really windy day in South Jersey.  In our town, it was also trash day.  This combination means that empty trash cans, as light as they are, are likely to be blown from the end of people's driveway out into the middle of the street.  And this can easily become a traffic hazard.
     Sure enough, as I was coming home this afternoon I saw just such a garbage can rolling into the street.  It would have been easy to drive around it and continue on my way; after all, it wasn't my can or even my street.  However, I figured it would be such a simple thing to pull over and take care of it.  In fact, that's exactly what I did.  I parked on the side of the road, grabbed the garbage can from the road, and put it behind some shrubs that would protect it from the wind.  
     This is one of those changes I've noticed as a result of my kindness project.  In the past, I would have left the garbage can for someone else to deal with.  Now, it's hard for me to pass up opportunities where I can help.  No one will ever know that the can was out there and no one will ever know I took care of it.  Except for me.  How many others probably drove by, like I would have previously done, and simply figured it was someone else's problem?
     It's certainly not curing cancer, but how nice would it be if everyone acted upon whatever opportunities for kindness, however small, showed up in their world?

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