Act of kindness

cruais wrote: »

Is that you Enda?

Give me a minute to consult my party before I answer that.

One act of kindness that sticks out in my mind is when I was in Cairns Australia I decided to walk to the airport as I had a few hour to kill.

I completely underestimated the distance involved and had been walking down a deserted road for at least 3 hours.

All of a sudden a car drives by me and stops about 100 yards ahead of me.

I thought in my mind this guy is stopping to offer me a lift. I thought ****! Do I get in or not, this could be dodgy.

As I approached the car, the guy driving was wearing a pilot's uniform and said to me "Alright mate, It's about to bucket down in about 3 minutes, Do you want me to drop you to your terminal?"

I weighed up the pro's and con's and thought OK I'll get in.

Sure enough 3 minutes later the heavens opened up and the guy dropped me to my terminal.

The drive took about 45 minutes so if I kept walking I would have missed my flight.

Was hoping the guy was gonna be the pilot for my flight which would have made the story even better! but He was flying somewhere else.

A great act of kindness on his part I thought.

A couple of years ago, when I first realised I had actually started to enjoy weight training, I got myself a set of 50kg weights and a bar in Argos for doing some stuff at home.

I hadn't really thought it through...the getting the gear from Argos to home. The bulky plates were in two boxes, 25kg each. It's not heavy but the only way to carry them was by using the plastic strapping as a handle and the Dart station was about half a mile away. So I struggled out of Argos with a box in each hand and trying to hold the bar as well.

A young guy comes over and offers a hand. He carried the box about three-quarters of the way for me before having to head off. Made all the difference. Never got to thank him properly but reminded me that there are some really good people in the world.

I also learned to never buy those vinyl plates in Argos. Get cast iron ones.

I believe random good deeds go a long way in life. They make you feel happy for being able to do it, and they can potentially turn a complete stranger's day upside down. With that in mind, I was determined to do a good deed the other morning.

I'm coming out of the bank and see some sort of vagabond loitering at the bin. I know beards are trendy and all, but I suspect this fella only had one because he couldn't afford a razor. Plus, he was well over 50, and wearing a tracksuit, so he's not a GQ subscriber.

Anywho, where we? The bin, that's right. I know what you're thinking; you're probably thinking because he was most probably homeless, he was rooting through the rubbish looking for food? Nope. That would've been classy compared to what he was actually doing, which was taking cigarette butts from the top of it and re-lighting them. I had cigarettes on me, and I'm tempted to go back and give him a full one, but I decide against it.

Then I'm leaving a post office about three minutes later and I see him at another bin, doing the exact same thing. "Ah here," I said to myself. I feel sorry for him at this stage. I've been cigarette-less before and it's not nice. I approach him.

"Excuse me, sir," I say to him. "Would you like a full one of those?" He hears me, but there's no eye contact on his part. He wasn't proud of what he was doing, hence the avoidance of eye contact, but he's too proud to accept.

He answers the second time: "No I have a full one," he responds, whilst holding a lit cigarette which has burnt past the writing. "You don't though, do you?" is what I want to say, but I leave him to it.

This was strange to me. I couldn't quite understand how someone could do what he was doing, but still have too much pride to reject a full cigarette. It made no sense.

Five minutes later I'm queing up in Tesco for another pack, because I need to replenish my supply. But I'm struck by a thought: "how happy would I make this bloke if I go back and give him 20 of the little bastards. I can turn a sh*t day into a great day for him." I wanted to make him happy but, considering I wasn't willing to suck him off or anything, this felt like the best alternative.

Instead, I buy two packs and I set off back to the bin. There's no sign of him. I go to the other bin. Still no sign. I did a full lap of the shopping centre, confident I'd find him at one of the bins, but he was gone. Forever.

Long story short, I tried to do a good deed by getting a bum some smokes but, despite failing, it's the thought that counts and I felt satisfied with my efforts.

I didn't flip his day upside down, but when was the last time you achieved this?

Last good deed I done was help a chap whos van wouldn't start towed it to the top of the hill after it ran out of diesel bled it and got it going again

no good deed goes unnoticed he was a handyman gave me his card and said when ever I needed anything done to the house to give him a call two months after gave him a bell and he came and cleaned the chimney for me just before Christmas

Time before that I changed a tyre for a chap stuck on the side of the road job done gave me his card to ring him to arrange a viewing of a museum that his company owned was a nice tour of the place

A while back I was after getting off the dart and getting my car was a horrible evening lashing rain , decided to head to lidl for a bottle of vino, while in the q I overheard an elderly man ring a taxi for him and his wife (from what I could gather this taxi man had dropped them to lidl and must have told them to ring him when they wanted to go home, but had gotten another fare and was far away and would take a while to get back) I turned around and offered to drive them home, they were so grateful, turns out he had just had an operation on his hip. Anyway I dropped them home (no skin off my nose turns out I was heading that direction anyway ) brought their shopping in for them, the wife gave me a big hug and they couldn't stop thanking me. I didn't want praise or thanx quite frankly I was happy to do it and was delighted that they didn't think I was some nutter lol, this act of kindness took me out of my way for about 10 minutes and yet it meant so much to this couple. I try to do good deeds whenever I can as I believe in karma.
My dad deserves a special mention as I have never met a man like him for being kind to people, over the years I have witnessed him drive a drug addict who ODed to hospital, change people's tyres, helping people fold buggys, unblocking his elderly neighbours drains, too much to list really he is 72 now and continues to amaze me with his random acts of kindnesses, my hero he is