an act of kindness

7/3/2016

random act of kindness // an unexpected gesture that benefits someone other than yourself

Sometimes, people have bad days. That’s just a fact of life, we’ve all been there, we’ve all been irritable for no good reason, everybody know what it feels like. On those days, anything can annoy you,  even if it’s just that your lucky socks are not quite dry yet. You can be the most wonderful person on the planet – but no matter what, everybody gets bad days. This is why random acts of kindness is such a brilliant idea. The aim is to encourage everyone to show a little kindness to anyone and everyone – if you catch them on a bad day, that’s just an added bonus. An act can be as little as a simple smile, a compliment, maybe helping to carry shopping out. It’s not the actual thing itself that counts, it’s that you’ve taken the time out of your day to focus on someone else, and more often than not, it makes their day.

Yesterday, I did something that I consider to be an act of kindness, but in actual fact, at the end of the day, I ended up benefiting too. Attached is a picture of a letter, it reads :

To the cleaner,

My mum made a casual comment about my grumpy teenage attitude so I decided to prove her wrong by leaving this note for you. Thank you for being a brilliant cleaner and I hope you have a lovely (if slightly rainy) day.

-grumpy teenager J

(I was planning on leaving some of my galaxy chocolate but I ate it – sorry!)

To the “grumpy” teenager,

You’re not on your own, I still get comments about my “teenage” attitude at the age of 22!

-Grumpy “adult”

PS shame about the chocolate!

I do not know this cleaner, I think he may be a man – just judging by the handwriting – and I learnt that they are 22, but honestly, we’re complete strangers. I did not get to see my letter being read, I was actually out of the house at the time, but I can only hope that when the cleaner saw it, it made their day and when I returned and found the reply, I was pretty pleased too. I wrote that note in about 5 minutes flat – and yes, okay, it isn’t the best piece of literature – but it brought some happiness to 2 people, which made it completely worth the little amount of effort I put into it.

vintage memoirs & current love affairs

-Lorna

natural observations

words are the foundations of human society

Ever since I was small, I have always noticed things. As weird as that may sound, it is utterly true. While most people were staring up at the shining, sparkling jewellery in the shop window, I would see the homeless man curled up in the corner, his eyes telling the story his lips would never allow, and while my friends would dream of holidays in Cyprus, I couldn’t wait to find a quiet spot in the shade with a notebook and my music. For a long time, I had thought that made me less of a person than the others, because I didn’t think like them, but soon enough I found that if you look hard enough – there are always parts of people who feel what I feel. I have found a love of words and of writing, and I believe that writing is the closest we ever get to magic, because with words and paragraphs – phrases even – we have the power to reduce people to tears and to bring joy to their hearts.

I named this ‘summdays’ an abbreviated way of saying Summer Days. For me, this blog is a way to escape real life – because lets face it, life overwhelms us all sometimes – and to help me find happiness in small things. I like sharing experiences, I like talking to people and I hope you find what I write enjoyable and inspiring.

As time passes, more of who I am will be revealed through my writing, but I don’t think it would be especially wise to share my life story at this early stage.

vintage memoirs & current love affairs

-laurena