Acts of kindness are a workout for the mind
‘Kindness is said to relieve stress and decrease blood pressure’
ILET myself go badly to seed over Christmas. I was out of the country on the mountains surrounded by snow where normal standards of dress and presentation are abandoned. Sipping a hot chocolate while eating chips with the other hand does not require the dress code that might apply if eating in a restaurant here. My mane of white hair grew more unruly and my beard, with a month’s neglect, became a real beard again.
Standards of dress on airplanes have also deteriorated. There was a time when people put on their best bib and tucker to fly. You don’t wear a belt because you will have to take it off about six times. Shoes have be easy to kick off to prove that you are not concealing a firebomb. Tracksuit and slippers is now the way to go, plus a coat with a lot of pockets for all your electronic weapons that need to be checked.
Aer Lingus ferried me home comfortably, which was very civil of them as a man of my years wearing skipants and a Santa pullover should probably be sent for psychological evaluation before boarding the aircraft. We landed and got on one of those infernal buses that takes as long as the flight and I was standing grumpily waiting for all the people with child buggies to get sorted out when I noticed a woman and child making a beeline for me. This puts the fear of God in me. It happens now and again; sometimes it is a KCLR listener who wants to say something which, thankfully, is usually pleasant. Or it is a reader of this newspaper who says hello, as indeed did a passport officer recently. It is nice to come home and be greeted with “Welcome home John. I read you every week,” by a stranger.
These two were none of the above. The lady greeted me with a smile and told me that her daughter had been drawing me and was delighted that Santa was on the same plane. I am not stupid enough not to realise that this was a situation that required careful handling.
I pretty much ignored the mother and went down on my hunkers to ‘just started school daughter’ height and we discussed her Christmas and mine and how it was great to have a rest after all the work.
I thanked her profusely for her drawing and told her that Mrs Claus would be thrilled. As we said our goodbyes her father tapped me on the shoulder to say thank you, and said she would be bursting to get back to school and tell everyone.
The little girl made my day, and in telling the story to a friend, I began thinking of random acts of kindness. People talk about the addiction of social media and I know what they mean. But I didn’t have to wean myself off it. I just began losing interest last year because there is so much negativity expressed by thoughtless and often fairly ignorant people. There is no value in reading much of it, and indeed I think it probably does us a bit of harm if we begin to accept this bile as normal behaviour.
Compliments, thoughtfulness and general positivity have the opposite effect and we do not do enough of it. A little bit of praise or recognition is like oxygen.
The next day my friend sent me an email to tell me that February 16-23 has been designated (by whom I have no idea) Random Acts of Kindness Week. I browsed a few slightly self-important websites but the gist of it is that kind acts do for the mind what exercise does for the body. They relieve stress and decrease blood pressure and all of the usual claims.
I take most of that with a pinch of salt. However I suspect there is more than a grain of truth in there. I do know that being drawn by that little girl, Charlotte, put me in good humour for the day. I am sure she will be just as good in 2020 as she was in 2019.