12/7/05
The Strangeness of Kindness

Tri-O's oddities, observations, and opinions
by Herb Kandel

Remember the old Aesop fable of the lion and the mouse? The lion was awakened from sleep by a mouse running over his face. He caught him and was about to kill him, when the mouse pleaded saying: “If you would only spare my life, I would be sure to repay your kindness.” The lion laughed and let him go. Later the lion was caught by some hunters, who bound him to the ground. The mouse, recognizing the lions roar, came and gnawed the rope with his teeth to set the lion free. Moral: No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
One never knows how an act of kindness may impact others down the line. For example, before the time when weekly magazines were normally delivered by mail they were hand delivered and sold on a house to house basis usually by neighborhood school boys. As a pre-teen yours truly used to have such a magazine delivery route. There was The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s Weekly. They were carried in a shoulder sling bag and faithfully deposited on the porches of subscribing neighbors along with knocking on doors of non-subscribers in hopes that they would buy a copy. From time to time the distributor offered prizes to those who sold over their allotted quota. One cherished offering was a pearl handled pen knife which I coveted. My quota was missed my by over 20 copies and that knife would never be mine. My eldest sister, who worked, seeing my situation bought all my remaining magazines, no small feat as extra money was not easily earned or so readily available. She gave a few to her co-workers and told me to give the others as samples to some of the people who had not bought them from me in the past. From this one act of kindness I won my knife, and gained more paying customers; some neighbors who were not familiar with what the magazines had to offer in the way of fiction and news were treated to new avenues of interest; my sister received gratitude and recognition at work to say nothing of the new found admiration of her kid brother. It was a win-win-win situation spawned by a simple thoughtful act. I would later learn that this marketing method of giving ‘samples’ was the foundation of the sales success of The Fuller Brush Company and later on Avon Products, to name a few.
In the movie Pay it Forward, based on the 2000 book by Catherine Ryan Hyde, a teacher assigns a project to his seventh grade class to do something “to change the world“. One student comes up with an idea to do something good for three people with their promise that each in turn would do the same for three more people, so instead of paying back a good deed they “pay it forward”. By this mathematical pyramid the whole world could be changed ..…..provided everyone kept their word utilizing this idealistic theory.
These deeds of kindness need not be world shaking. A note left to your server along with your tip, calling “Aunt Matilda” who you haven’t seen in years, buying a candy bar at the check out and giving it to the child in back of you, letting in a motorist trying to merge into your lane, telling any service person you appreciate their work. Call me a Pollyanna but carrying this a step further, how about proclaiming a national People Appreciation Day? A day calling attention to the daily services performed for us that we usually take for granted. All it takes to participate is saying a sincere “Thank you” along with a smile. It costs nothing but conveys much and you strike a blow for civility. One of my favorites, paying the toll for the person behind you on a bridge.
Folks of a certain age may recall the days of yesteryear when the Lone Ranger rode off after having performed an anonymous act of heroism and a bystander asks, “Who was that masked man?” Well, my friend, this time it could be you (dare I pun “The Lone Stranger“? ….groan…….nah!). *
“The happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts and the happy delivery of it another.”- Mark Twain's Autobiography (November 30th marked his 170th birthday)
* For more of these ideas for individuals and groups see www.actsofkindness.org