Often while working from one Starbucks or another, writing documents for whatever gig I was working at the time, I would strike up conversations with the person sitting close to me. Inevitably in the conversation they would say “I have no idea why I am telling you this.” ‘This’ was whatever problem seemed to be hobbling their life and keeping them from moving forward. Each of those conversations ended with a “thank you” and a handshake or hug. Once, after a somewhat heavy conversation with someone about the nightmare they were living, knowing I would never see them again but hoping my listening and talking actually helped, I began to feel sorry for myself. I headed out and crawled in my pickup and flippantly said “Do I ever do any good? I mean, just once, I would like to know if I ever do any good”. That question and its following remark was directed toward the Boss.
Several weeks later I received an email from a person I knew thirty-plus years prior. During my high school years I would often go visit her and her family spending hours with them just talking and listening and generally having fun. I had not heard from her since she abruptly left town during summer of my senior year. Several emails later she asked that I post a picture of myself on social media. I did and the subsequent response caught me off-guard. She wrote “Thanks for posting the picture. I wanted to show my son the person that saved my life. ”
Saved her life? To my knowledge I never saved her life – I just listened when she was upset.
A week or so later I received an email from a different person I knew from high school. She left midway through our senior year when her family moved to Alaska. In her email was the comment “Can you believe this. . . Do you remember a little brown stuffed bear you gave me as a going away gift when I moved to Alaska for a year. . . Well I still have that little bear, and it has made every trip with me that I’ve ever made ever since. . . ” In a subsequent email she added that she works in the Oil and Gas industry and has extensively traveled the world and “That little bear has been on EVERY road trip I’ve been on since I’ve had him. . . It for some reason has always been a source of comfort to me. When it’s not traveling, it sits on my dresser where I can see it all the time. Thank you for that. ”
I remember that bear. She was upset about leaving her friends and I got the bear and told her it was a reminder that her friends are always there for her.
Fast forward a couple of weeks. For months, after hearing a ‘feel good’ piece on the radio, I’d pay for the order behind me in the drive-thru when fetching my ‘Monday morning Starbuck coffee’ to survive the ninety minute drive to work. Once a barista told me he worked a double shift the prior week just to see how far it would go. Said even when the drive-thru emptied out the last car bought the drink for the person at the counter and vice versa. Around 4:30 in the afternoon it stopped because there were no more customers.
This particular Monday I was in a foul mood that did not lessen any as I approached my Starbucks. The drive-thru line wrapped half-way around the building, across their parking lot and down the length of the strip shopping center. Never have I seen that many cars in a Starbucks line. Staying in such a line would easily delay my drive by twenty to thirty minutes giving the traffic on my route time to build to a two hour drive. As luck would have it, a parking spot empties in the front of the store and I pull in and head to the door. As I open the door and see a lady, twenty or more years my junior behind me and I hold the door open for her. She enters and does something I had never before witnessed. She steps to the side to let me get in front of her in line.
When I reach the cashier, it is the same person who worked the double shift. I order my drink and tell the cashier I’m buying the drink for the person behind me. I gesture to the woman and she says “You don’t have to do that”. I explain, “I do this every Monday and today I am in a bad mood and this will help. You can ask the barista”. The barista confirms my actions and the woman pauses for a second, looks at me and says “I’m in a bad mood too so I’m going to let you buy my drink”. I pay and step over to the Barista stand and the lady follows and we wait for our drinks. I ask what she does for a living and she explains she is a teacher. For a minute there is comfortable silence then suddenly she beams with a huge smile and says “This is so cool”. I grumpily ask what is and she replies “That you bought my drink”. I shook my head, assuming she thinks this to be unusual and I start to say “No, you don’t understand, I…” She interrupts me “No, YOU don’t understand. I teach English as a second language and Fridays lesson was ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ and now I have a real life example to tell my kids!”
I don’t recall my reply and I am sure she was taken aback by my reaction for I felt horrified. The full realization of what she said immediately hit me. I bought a drink for a stranger who will use that event as a real-life example to her kids, and they, perhaps, may be more encouraged to perform a random act of kindness themselves. Those recipients in turn could tell others or others seeing those acts, could be encouraged to perform some themselves. How many lives did I impact with that one simple act? One? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? Tens or hundreds of thousands over the life-time of just one child who hears the retelling of the story of a stranger buying a cup of coffee? That observation came in an instant and paired with that is the realization of the unknown impact associated to questions: how many times was I rude, disrespectful, or discourteous? How many lives did I impact in those moments?
Something as simple as a random act ripples, be it kindness or hostility, not only through a connected crowd of desperate people, but also across time, touching the lives of people I will never know.
I left with my drink and stepped into my pickup and once again tried to understand if it was the recognition of my arrogance or my ignorance that stung worse. I said out loud “OK, I got it. I’m sorry I asked if I ever do any good. I was just feeling sorry for myself. ” To this day I have never asked another such question, preferring to remain oblivious on how I impact others. But I carry with me the knowledge that I saved a person’s life, provided peace of mind and a lifeline to home to someone who travels the world, and most importantly, I cannot pass through this world without touching the lives of an untold number of people, just by doing even the slightest thing. And periodically, the Boss lets me see how someone else is doing and each time I am grateful for the insight, but I never again want to know what happens.
I tell people there is corporal punishment for the soul. They often don’t believe it but when it happens it leaves a permanent mark on your soul and in your heart. For those that require it to get your attention, I hope you can appreciate being given such a gift, for that is what it is, a gift for the soul.
Copyright © 2024 G. Steven Nolte – Rights for non-commercial reproduction granted: May be copied in its entirety, but neither retyped nor edited.