10 Small Acts of Kindness That Changed Someone’s Life Forever
We often think that life-changing moments require grand gestures or big, dramatic actions, but sometimes the smallest acts of kindness can have the most profound impact. A simple word of encouragement, a small favor, or a selfless gesture can completely shift someone’s perspective and even change the course of their life. These moments might seem insignificant at the time, but they ripple out in ways we can’t always predict.
A man in a full business suit with a briefcase handed me an umbrella in a torrential rainstorm and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I still had to walk through Times Square to get to the train, and I’m sure he got soaked going wherever he was going.
A couple of weeks later, I gave the umbrella to a lost girl in my neighborhood when it started to rain, and she didn’t have one. Felt like the universe wanted it to happen. I’ll never forget that man, though “When I was maybe 4 or 5 years old, I made friends with another kid in an airport, and he was playing with a couple glued together Lego cars.
That kid and I played for like an hour with those things and when it was time to go our separate ways and board the plane, the kid insisted I keep one of the cars. And while I insisted he should keep them, he said it was proof that we were friends. And to this day, roughly 20 years later, I still have that car packed up with my childhood mementos box.
We were a poor family. My mom had made a point of saving up enough once to take my sister and I to the zoo & museum. We had a great day, even ate out. Then, on the way to the bus stop heading home, she realized she’d overspent & didn’t have enough to pay for all three of us to get there. We were looking at a 6-mile walk, and it had just started snowing.
We duck into a small Chinese restaurant & ask if we can use the phone (mom was going to ask someone for a ride). The owner asks us why we needed the phone and after mom explains, he not only gave us the money we needed to get on the bus, but also sent us home with enough food to feed 6 people.