Over the past few months, I’ve been making regular trips to the hospital because my mother has a heart condition. Later, we found out she also has diabetes. So, every month I take her to see both a cardiologist and an internist.
Every time I prepare to accompany her, whether to the community clinic or the hospital, I steel myself. There are always moments of unpleasantness: a doctor at the clinic who responds curtly to questions about referral letters, a hospital clerk who never looks up from the monitor, a tone of voice that sounds hurried or dismissive.
And yet, there are also days when we meet someone different. A doctor who greets us with warmth, a nurse who takes the time to explain, a staff member who treats us as people instead of numbers. In those moments, I feel a lump rise in my throat. I want to say, “Thank you for being kind to me. I needed that more than you know.
I recognize the same feeling in another part of my life: the daily commute to work by train. The scene is crowded and chaotic—voices raised, elbows thrown, people pushing and cursing just to force themselves through the doors. Some plant themselves at the entrance, refusing to make way for others.
But once in a while, someone offers a seat, or reaches up to help place my bag in the overhead rack. These gestures stand out so sharply against the noise and impatience around them. The contrast makes the kindness shine brighter than it otherwise would.
And so I keep asking myself: why does kindness move me so deeply? Why does it feel extraordinary when it should be ordinary? Isn’t kindness supposed to be the baseline in how we live with one another?
I once came across an explanation. Chuck Swindoll, an author and preacher, suggested that kindness is rare because it requires extra time, and most of us are always in a hurry. That struck me as true. Life today feels like a race. We are pushed to think of ourselves first. Competition speaks louder than compassion.
Kindness, on the other hand, slows us down. It asks us to imagine the world from another person’s point of view. It asks us to set aside our own concerns, however briefly, and step into someone else’s need. And since selfishness comes so naturally to us, kindness never arrives easily.
Perhaps that is why I am surprised whenever someone chooses it. Because in that moment, they have given me more than a seat or a hand with my bag. They have given me their time, their energy, their presence.
These small acts can make my day. I know I cannot expect them from everyone. But perhaps that is not the point. Perhaps the point is that I can choose to be the one who carries it forward, so that kindness does not end with me, and make someone else’s day a little lighter.