Acts of Human Kindness

The best part of my day happened not thirty minutes ago. I know it's the best part of my day because it involved one of my favorite things in the whole world: small acts of human kindness.

It happened in a restaurant with my grandpa. I came over to my grandparents' house to spend the day there (as I sometimes do; my grandparents really like me and I really like them so it's all good). And my grandpa often takes me out to lunch at a particular restaurant we both like, and that's where we were this afternoon. Since we go to the restaurant frequently together, I think the people who work there are beginning to know us as "the old guy and his grandkid who come to eat sometimes on weekdays". My grandpa finds it kind of amusing, in his way, that they recognize us, and today he did something that will definitely leave an impression in their minds.

I should explain something about what the restaurant is like. You go in, you order your food with a waiter or waitress standing behind a counter, who gives you a number and later brings your food to you. It's that kind of place. People normally don't leave tips in those kinds of places, and my grandpa and I have never left tips until today, when we were getting up to go and our waitress started taking our plates away. In an action unanticipated by the waitress and myself, he pulled two dollars out of his wallet and gave them to her.

This made the waitress really happy. Two dollars isn't much, and it was probably less than what you'd tip someone in a "regular restaurant", but she was really happy because she probably doesn't get tips very much. A man whom I presume was the manager even came out after hearing the semi-commotion and thanked my grandpa, giving both him and myself a handshake. If they didn't know us before, they know us now as the old guy and his grandkid who happened to tip the waitress.

Things like that - small acts of human kindness - are my favorite kinds of things in the world. No matter how awful I say humans are by nature, even I can't deny that they have the capacity for kindness. What makes this so? Probably it's because some humans (and I could even go so far as to say many or even most humans) have taken on the idea, whether through deliberate instruction, personal searches for morality, or even just observation, that it's a good idea to do nice things for others. Maybe it's because they've been instructed to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Maybe it's because they've gotten it into their heads that doing nice things for other people is just the thing you're supposed to do. Maybe it's because some people are actually "naturally good" and just feel compelled to do these sorts of things because it's "who they are". Probably, though, it's because a lot of people have come to understand that being nice just makes things go smoother and is likely to lead to a happier, more productive society (and I think everyone, or at least most people, are at least faintly aware of this, even if they never become entirely cognizant of it).

This reminds me of the one time I was on the bus, riding home from school, when an old lady was getting on. There weren't any seats left, so I was about to get up and offer her mine, but some other guy beat me to it. I was just really happy the rest of the way home because that little event meant that at least two people on the bus were willing to give up their seats for an old lady. Neither the guy nor I had anything to gain from it, but we both knew it would be the nice thing to do, the right thing to do.

Little examples of human kindness, like giving money to a waitress you didn't have to get money to or offering your seat to an old person when there are no seats left, are things that show me that, while humanity on the whole is pretty crummy, humans have the ability to rise above their crummy natures and do nice things for each other and perhaps even make a habit of that, and that is beautiful.