An Act of Kindness

Acts of kindness, I have come to realise, are not entirely the province of the pious and the virtuous. Ordinary people routinely carry out acts of kindness simply through a desire to be helpful to those who may be in need of help. I was recently a pleasantly surprised but immensely grateful beneficiary of just such an act of kindness whilst travelling on my local train. On my journeys on my local train I often avail myself of the free newspaper that, these days, is widely available to passengers. I am particularly fond of whiling away my journey time by grappling with Soduku puzzles. But despite my fondness for Soduku, I do not always have the foresight to equip myself with the one implement that is indispensable when working with Soduku : a pen. Consequently, I often find myself attempting to solve a Soduku puzzle in my head rather than on paper, - by working out the appropriate square where a particular number needs to be placed and then retaining the position of that square in my mind. I should add that when exercising my mind in this way over a Soduku, I often find myself moving my fingers along the rows and columns of the puzzle to determine the right square for the right digit, which of course is the key for the solution of a Soduku puzzle. My finger movements, in a sense, betray the mental processes that I am engaged in. And indeed they did just that the other day, when I was on the train engrossed in mentally solving the Soduku challenge contained in my copy of the local free paper. I was scarcely aware of my finger moving back and forth across the Soduku grid in front of me but unknown to me, it did not escape the attention of a young lady who was sitting opposite me, reading a book. She might have been intrigued by my strange antics but she quickly realised the predicament that I was in. She was clearly a Good Samaritan who wouldn’t walk by on the other side in a biblical sense and realising that I was in want of a pen to do my Soduku puzzle, decided to come to my aid. Rummaging into her handbag, she found a pen and held it out to me with a charming smile that invited me to use it. It was an invitation that took me by surprise. I was momentarily overwhelmed and humbled by this act of heart-warming kindness, which was as unexpected as it was spontaneous. I was only too eager of course, to accept her invitation but I like to think that even in my excitement at obtaining a much needed pen, I accepted her kind offer with a graciousness that matched her generosity. Having now been provided with a much needed pen, I was able to make rapid progress with my Soduku and even managed to finish it before arriving at my destination. It meant of course that I was able give the pen back to my benefactor and thank her profusely, although I am quite sure she would not have thought that a profusion of thanks on my part were necessary. She seemed to me to be one of those genuinely kind hearted souls that one meets infrequently but sufficiently regularly to serve as a constant reminder that kindness is by no means at a premium but abounds in the hearts of ordinary men and women. Indeed, just as it is often ordinary men and women who carry out extraordinary acts of courage and bravery, it seems to me that it is similarly ordinary men and women that carry out extraordinary acts of kindness. This lady’s kindness was extraordinary not perhaps in its enormity but certainly in its spontaneity. If kindness were measured simply on some scale of generosity, then this lady’s kindness to me might not be considered particularly out of the ordinary but kind acts are more than testimonials to munificence. On occasion they are an expression of a nature that is moved by an irrepressible desire to aid those in need, however small that need may be. Such acts of instinctive altruism become, in the enormity of their compassion, irrespective of the modesty of their largess, acts of kindness that may be perceived as truly extraordinary. The alacrity with which this lady came to my aid when I was in need, was just such an act of extraordinary kindness. PermalinkPe