Random Acts of Kindness

If you follow my social media, the story I’m beginning with won’t be entirely new, but for those of you who aren’t on social media, or maybe just aren’t on very often, I’ll tell you about Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday, I had a sprint workout, so I biked out to the running trail well before sunrise, as is normal. Typically when I arrive, I lock my bike at the base of the trail and get going with my run. I was nearly to the bike rack when I realized that I had forgotten to bring the key to my bike lock. This had happened once before, but at the time, I was must earlier in my recovery and not running as fast or as far, so I tucked my bike in a shelter area and had just done my run/walk back and forth in front of it.

This is the view from the little shelter area on the trail.

I considered asking the construction workers who are repaving the area near the bike lock to just keep an eye on it for me. They see me every day, they might be amenable. Or they might think I’m annoying. Upon arrival, there were no construction workers, so this became a moot point. The idea of going back home was quickly discarded. I decided to bike back out to the shelter and try what I had tried that time before. The trail is typically deserted so early in the morning. I’d probably be concerned the whole time, but everything would be fine.

As I neared the shelter, I saw that someone was there. Dammit.

I pulled off anyway and saw a man with an electric bike taking pictures of the sunrise. We exchanged greetings and I tucked my bike into a corner and turned off its lights. I asked him how long he was staying. He said not long, probably just until the sun popped up over the hills. I explained to him that I’d forgotten my bike lock and asked if he would just keep an eye out for my bike as long as he was there. He said sure, but let me know he probably wasn’t going to be that long. I said that’s fine, I would just run back and forth in front of the area.

All the same, I felt better knowing that he was going to be there at least for a few minutes, so I went a bit further out on my first couple of sprints. On the way back, I could see that he was still there, so I concentrated on my sprints and went passed him. Long story short, he was there every time I passed the area. Even after the sun had come up. When I jogged back from my cool down, he was putting his helmet on.

“You stayed the entire time!” I said.

“Yeah, I didn’t have anywhere to be and it was a beautiful morning,” he replied.

I thanked him and asked if I could get a quick video with him just saying that good people are out there. He agreed, we shot a quick video, and talked a little bit about the trail and the best places to watch the sunrise. He had just found the trail and his plan was to send his mom all the photos of the sunrise he had taken when he got home. His name was Tom.

Screenshot from my TikTok video with Tom. (Which of course I took with permission.)

Now, my bike probably would have been fine where it was had he left, but I would have been stressing about it during my entire run. However, I would not have thought any less of Tom had he gone about his merry way as soon as I had left the shelter area. Instead of stressed and beating myself up for forgetting my keys, I left the trail that day lifted from the interaction. It colored my morning. I may never see Tom again, or I may see him every time I get to that part of the trail. But he made a huge difference in my week.

It got me to thinking about random acts of kindness. The ones that don’t really put you out all that much, but make a huge difference to the person on the receiving end. I asked a few people if they had a RAOK experience and everyone that I asked was able to think of something.

One friend was at the grocery store and noticed that the man behind him in line only had a packet of watermelon. He bought it for him just because he could. In his words, “In the moment I thought, ‘I have the money to do this and so I can and will.’ By the time I got to my car and realized that was his dinner I wished I had told him to go back for something else and maybe a drink.”

Another friend had just opened a massage clinic and was surprised to learn that two clients had come to take care of the garden on the off days as a surprise. “It was so heart warming.”

It was actually nice for me to hear about other people’s experiences on both the giving and receiving ends of kindness. It’s inspiring on the small levels and makes me want to try and do more in daily life just to lift others up. I wonder what the world would look like if we all felt able to give a bit more. If we all had a little more money, a little more time. It’s certainly much easier to give from a place of plenty.

In a discussion with my friend Kyle (watermelon buying friend) we both felt that coming out of extremely lean times might change one’s perspective and make it easier to see the opportunity to reach out and have less hesitancy in doing so. Maybe some people are naturally generous. Or maybe they’ve experienced a recent dose of generosity themselves and feel like passing it on.

Regardless, I’ll be doing my best to pass it along. If you’d care to share your experiences with random acts of kindness, I’d love to read about them in the comments. I’m sure others would as well.