10 Beautiful Moments That Teach Us Kindness Can Lead to Unexpected Love and Joy

A woman collapsed at a diner I was eating at, maybe 1am, place was mostly empty. I called 911 and just stayed next to her on the floor until the ambulance showed up, held her bag so nobody would steal it, that kind of thing. Followed the ambulance to the hospital honestly more out of instinct than anything, I don’t even know why. At the hospital, a nervous man rushed and asked, “Did she say anything?” I said no. As I was leaving, nurse pulled me aside and was speechless, when she said, “Pls don’t leave, that man is in a rough place.”
Looked through the door and he was just sitting there holding her hand with both of his, shoulders finally starting to drop a little. When I told him I was the one who called it in, he thanked me about six times, voice cracking on every one of them. I left after that, didn’t get either of their names. Compassion that night wasn’t really anything dramatic, it was just not letting a stranger go through something scary completely alone.

Flight got cancelled during a blizzard and I had maybe $40 to my name for two days stuck in an airport I didn’t know. A woman overheard me crying on the phone to my mom and just handed me her hotel key, said she’d booked a double and didn’t need both beds. I argued with her for a solid five minutes before giving up.
We stayed up till 2am, she told me about her husband, I told her about a breakup I was still not over. Still text her every Christmas, five years running now. Last year she mentioned she’d started traveling again because of that night, which honestly wrecked me a little when I read it. Anyway. Sometimes the worst 48 hours of your life hand you something good you didn’t ask for.

It just never hurts to be nice. You don’t know what people go through or how long it’s been since someone said something or did nice for someone, so I do my part to reset the clock on that. I remember holding the door for a guy one time when he was like 20 feet behind me, and he was so appreciative that someone did something for him that sounded like he was about to tear up. You just never know, so why not be a good person?

You never know what someone is going through, even the happiest of people can be struggling internally. I struggle with low self esteem, I never want someone else to feel how low I feel on a daily basis. Being kind can literally be life saving.

My dad’s hospice nurse used to stay twenty, thirty minutes past her shift just to sit with him on nights none of us could make it. Wasn’t paid for it. Said everyone deserves a hand to hold at the end, that’s just how she saw it. After he passed away she wrote us a letter about conversations they’d had that we never knew about , stuff about his childhood, his first job, things he apparently talked about more freely with her than with us. We still get a card from her every December. My mom keeps saying she should write her a longer letter back and never does. Some people just carry that much love around and hand it out without being asked.

Spent my entire work bonus on winter coats for my nephew’s whole class after he mentioned some kids didn’t have one. Dropped a box off with the teacher, told her to keep it anonymous. Months later found out one of those kids had basically stopped wanting to go to school because he only had a ripped jacket.
Started smiling again the week he got the new one, according to his mom. I still haven’t told anyone besides my wife it was me, not because I’m being noble about it, I just don’t know how to bring it up without sounding like I’m fishing for a compliment. Kind of ruined “anonymous good deed” as a concept for me though, because now I just want everyone to know. Gave out as much as you can and show kindness to the world, and I can swear it will be appropriated.

I can’t say I’m kind every day, because I’m often not, but I have noticed that my own life is better if I’m kind to people, especially living in a small community like I do. Being kind takes the sting out of rudeness, usually on both sides. Being nice makes me feel good, and often makes them back down and apologies, or at least stop doing what they’re doing. Sometimes just asking if they’re ok can make them stop, although sometimes it leads to a life story! I have always regretted being mean. I’ve never regretted being kind.

Being kind is better for my own mental health. Being bitter and envious destroys my own joy and ties me to negativity. Being kind feels better and seeing others being happy feels good too. Also, if people know you to be the kind person, as long as you still stand up for yourself of course, they’re more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if you end up having a conflict with a person known to be nasty and rude and if one word stands against the other are more likely to believe you than the others. So be kind.

My neighbor is 78 and complains about everything, my dog, my car, my music, the way I park. When I had emergency surgery and nobody could watch my toddler, this same man showed up with a folding chair and a bag of crackers and sat in my living room for six hours so my kid wasn’t alone. Didn’t cook, didn’t clean, just sat there. When I tried to thank him afterward he grumbled something about my dog again and left. Never mentioned it since. I don’t know what to do with a person who’s rude about everything except the one thing that actually matters, show kindness and compassion when its needed. I think it gave him some kind of joy.

During the flood two summers ago, a guy with a small fishing boat spent eighteen hours ferrying people, pets, and at least a few chickens to dry ground, refusing to take money from anyone. My aunt was one of the people he pulled out, and she said he kept cracking jokes the whole ride so the kids on board wouldn’t get scared, even though you could tell he was running on fumes. There was something beautiful about the kindness and compassion he showed that day, bringing a little joy to people who were terrified and exhausted.
Once the water went down, half the town chipped in to fix his boat motor, which had apparently been dying the entire time without him mentioning it. He tried to refuse the money too, but finally accepted when someone pointed out that he’d need a working boat for the next one. Small towns are weird like that, everybody just quietly keeping score of who to pay back.