Not long ago, a friend wrote to me that she had to go to the emergency room. She had some stomach pain but the kindness of all the people in the emergency room touched and surprised her. It was not just kindness in the sense of their provision of services for her and doing their job but it was the way they did it and that they really took special care of her and shared something from their own lives.

What made her realise was the kindness of people who had been strangers, and when she walks down the street or drives down the road, she now sees all the other strangers as equally kind. In other words, she had realised that all the people who are strangers can now, in a finger snap, show the same kind of kindness to her as those people in that emergency room.

She began to see that there is no hard and fast category between stranger and helper and that we are quite interdependent with others. We may similarly be strangers to others but then suddenly we meet them in some kind of situation and have the opportunity to be kind to them. The whole thing is to slow down and be aware of how much we influence one another and the impact of our actions on others. We then will have a chance to return that kindness when we encounter others who were previously strangers.

“365 Gems of Wisdom” e-book is out now!