Displays of human kindness

I spend a lot of time on public transport. Mainly I have days like today; where some 14 year old child who weighed as much as a baby elephant has probably broken my toe and caused me to get off 3 stops early and get a bus that took an hour to do what the train would have done in less than 5 minutes, meaning I didn't get home til after 7pm when I left at 7am and had a 5 hour lab just because him and his mates were too thick to realise that you can't fit 20 people in a doorway...

But you occasionally see some beautiful things. And that's not just the stuff outside the windows; it's been pretty misty recently and it's pretty impressive to see that over the fields. There's also some pretty incredible goose-related sights in autumn, I think, and when the foals are born in spring that warms my heart. But sometimes people manage it too.

Let me put it simply, I'm not a maternal person. Not by a long shot. So a baby/small child has to be incredibly cute to get me to smile and play with it. Yesterday a woman with a little kid sat opposite me on the train and the kid was fairly cute. A couple of lads got on, younger than I am, with a staffordshire bull terrier and sat down next to me.

People think staffies aren't very nice dogs (but I would usually disagree as I have a stance that any dog can be dangerous and it depends a lot more on parental genes and the way it was raised than by breed alone). People also think young lads aren't decent either, especially not ones that can be classed as "chavs" and especially if those chavs have dogs such as staffies on a chain lead.

But these two were also drawn to the kid because he was smiling away, and the kid was drawn to the dog. Naturally, the kids mam told him not to touch the dog (because you don't touch strange dogs) when it was next to him, but he went to stroke it anyway, as kids do. The dog wandered off and the kid looked a little upset and, seeing this, the lad who owned the dog asked him if he wanted to stroke the dog and got up from his seat, walked over and sat on the floor so the kid could stroke the dog.

The kid was a bit scared and the dog lost interest and wandered off, but he was constantly staring at it so the lad got up again and sat on the floor again and the little lad had a stroke of it and was smiling like this > .

This basically ended in everyone having a chat and a joke (which doesn't happen often) and me actually playing games with this little lad which involved a lot of head shaking and made me quite dizzy.

Of course he went and ruined it by having a tantrum coz his mam didn't want him to stand up on his own incase he fell over and so he started screaming the place down and reminding me why I really don't actually like kids. The dog was no bother whatsoever and this is why animals are better, but, while it lasted, it was just one of those little glimpses you get into life that remind you that people aren't all horrible and the tiniest things can brighten up your day.

And, quite frankly, I'd like to have at least one of those moments that you just have to smile at (because you have no other choice in the matter!) a day because it helps a lot when you've not seen the sun for about a month, you're constantly in the rain and you're getting up at 6am every morning when you don't sleep properly. I'm nowhere close to optimistic, but I like the feeling it gives you and if I felt like that even a couple of times per week I think my status as cold hearted ice-queen might start melting my hatred of humanity a little bit.

After today, I don't count on it though

reply to post by Ayana


I think when you are put in a position to do a random act of kindness,it brightens everyone's day.
A few months back I was in line at the grocery checkout.
The debit and credit card swipers were down.
For anyone who knows me,I am VERY against using plastic to buy things...cash only.

An elderly lady was in front of me trying to swipe her debit card which wasn't working.
Normally I would have shook my head and paid cash and laughed at the dummies relying on plastic.

As she starts to realize there was nothing she could do I told the cashier to just put her groceries on my bill and i will cover it.
The lady almost cried and waited for me to check out so she could ask me how she can get ahold of me to pay it back.
I told her to just do something nice for someone if she gets the chance.

The funny thing is,I probably feel more fortunate than her for having that opportunity to do that than she does having her groceries paid for.

reply to post by Ayana


I feel the same way. I was just at walmart and while I was in the checkout line there was a kid screaming on the top of his lungs and the mother was doing nothing to stop it, you can tell everyone within a 50meter radius was very annoyed. This went on for about 5min and I couldnt take it anymore, I left my shopping cart in the checkout line and just walked out the store. I would rather have a police siren against my ear then listen to a kid throwing a temper tentrum.

I love when people do something nice for a complete stranger. I love doing good things for strangers, it gives me a good feeling thats better then any drug. Its brings hope that there is still good people out there but that feeling doesnt last long, as soon as I turn on the news I hear about some 12yr old girl killed for her bike, I child found raped and murdered, a mother drowning all her kids, a drunk driver killing a entire family ect... Seems like the evil out there far out weighs the good.

But I wont let that stop me from being a good person and help others.

reply to post by DrumsRfun


Ah, that's a lovely thing to do and a really nice thing to say afterwards too in regards to her paying you back for it.