10 Times People Who Had Every Reason to Give Up Still Chose Kindness From a Child Sharing Snacks to a Stranger Millennial Staying During a Medical Emergency

I was getting my ID for my first big girl job while in school. I was overwhelmed and excited too. Dressed up and did my hair, and this random old lady came up to me and told me I was beautiful. Gave me the push I needed.
It’s been 8 years and I got laid off from that job recently. But I still think about that interaction.

I work security at a ballpark and one day while screening fans at the entrance, I started feeling lightheaded. I called my boss on the radio to let him know I needed a chair as I wasn’t feeling well.
My boss was upstairs, and I later found out he had run down and caught me before I hit the ground. I did pass out. He had been a paramedic and took very good care of me, but he was all business. To be understood, it shook him up a little as well.
A woman who was a fan, but I wasn’t acquainted with at the time, was there holding my hand and had her purse under my head. I was very embarrassed and told her it was okay, she could go on and enjoy her day. She said “No, I’m staying here as long as you need me.” She waited with me until they loaded me in the ambulance.
Turns out my heart was stopping, and I needed a pacemaker. I will be forever grateful to that kind woman. I was scared, and she really did comfort me. I always try to pay forward what she did for me that day.

I was on a plane with my 8-month-old. Sweating. Stressing. She wasn’t crying or anything but I was praying she would stay calm as the flight was 8 hours.
This lady next to me looked at me and said, “Please do not hesitate, I’ll happily carry her so you can have a bite in peace.” I immediately teared up.

In 2018, I posted, asking why my resume wasn’t getting any responses. I had finished a coding bootcamp, didn’t have a degree, and was hearing absolutely nothing back. A senior backend engineer replied, then messaged me and offered to review my resume over a video call. Within two minutes he pointed out, very kindly, that I had a typo in my own email address.
Since recruiters almost always email first, that explained a lot. He then spent another hour and a half rewriting my project descriptions and running a mock interview with me. He also introduced me to a recruiter, although I didn’t get that particular job.
I landed my first developer role about four months later, and I’ve tried to offer the same kind of empathy to a few people since, though I’m not nearly as patient as he was.

I was taking the train home from uni carrying art supplies. The train wasn’t too crowded but an older lady sat across from me and another closer to my age next to me.
The older woman started complaining about my art folio crowding her space so I moved them, but she started trying to tell me where to move them (I had the window seat so put my folio flat against the wall, it wasn’t where she wanted me to put them I guess but I stood my ground there).
I had my headphones on and a few minutes after the first interaction she gets my attention again to complain that she could hear my music and I needed to turn it down. I was really embarrassed at that point, I have severe social anxiety and don’t want to come across as a public nuisance so I apologized and started turning down my music.
The lady sitting next to me then snapped at the older woman, defending me and putting her in her place. She informed me that I wasn’t in the way or too loud and that apparently this woman’s issues didn’t start at me, she was apparently complaining and trying to order around multiple people over on the platform before they got on the train.

When I was 18, I had to go to my grocery store job in the ice. I was scared. I got in my car to go to work because it was only 5 minutes away. Over the highway bridge I started sliding. I didn’t know what was happening. The car was sliding and I had no control.
This beautiful lady stopped. She put me in her car to stay warm. She got my car off the bridge and explained how to maneuver. She was dressed up so nicely and smelled so good. Her car was clean.
I’ll never forget her. She cared more than my parents who sent me unprepared out into the world.

I got laid off in December 2019, two weeks before Christmas, and I didn’t tell my family until my new job started in late January. My parents worry about everything, and I didn’t want my unemployment to be the main topic at Christmas dinner. Every morning I’d go to a little coffee shop in my neighborhood, order the cheapest drip coffee on the menu, and stretch it out for three hours while I applied for jobs. One morning the barista was wiping down the table next to mine and obviously saw my screen full of job boards.
Ten minutes later she brought over a latte and a blueberry muffin I hadn’t ordered, with a sticky note on the cup that said, “Job hunting is the worst. This one’s on us.” I didn’t cry or anything dramatic. I just felt weirdly exposed and grateful at the same time, because somebody had noticed.
That small kindness got me through a pretty gray month. She left the shop a couple of years ago, and I never got her last name, which bugs me more than it probably should.

Our house burned down in January 1997, when I was seven. Nobody was hurt, but we lost nearly everything and spent a month in a motel off the interstate.
A woman from my grandma’s church, Mrs. Albright, found out where we were staying and showed up with a bag of hand-me-down clothes. She also brought a brand-new stuffed rabbit, which I named Mr. Buttons and carried everywhere until fifth grade.
Years later, Mom told me Mrs. Albright had lost her own home in a flood in the ’70s. She never talked about it, but I guess she knew what it felt like to lose everything. As a Millennial, I grew up learning that the smallest acts of kindness can leave the biggest marks on someone’s life.
I’m 37 now, and every January, I donate stuffed animals to our local family shelter. My kids think it’s just a little tradition we have, but someday I’ll tell them the whole story.