Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Impact of Small and Ordinary Happiness

One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately has been inspired by my recent experience with people during my heart surgery recovery. I am not someone who has a lot of faith in humanity. I’ve talked a lot about this in regards to trail angels and hikertrash on the Appalachian Trail. My hike on the AT was one of the few experiences that really gave me faith in humanity. In general, and lately watching the political situation in America, I have very little faith in humanity.

The one place that humanity shows up, is during the big things. So people generally ignore each other, can be rude to each other and incredible entitled and self-centered until the disaster hits. We see this all of the time, in LA recently with the fires last year, the hurricane in Western North Carolina, always after an earthquake people rally around their neighbors and community. It’s the same with people, people will treat you like shit most of the time, but when someone has cancer, or gets injured or undergoes heart surgery, people rally. Honestly this is really sad to me.

People always complain that the world is cruel and unkind and daily they feel run down by the way people treat them. So the message I want to get out tonight is that we can all make this better. Simply by the small and ordinary acts of kindness and happiness. If we would all just take the moment needed to be nicer and kinder, the accumulation of those small acts could lead to a much larger thing, a kinder and a happier world. So you’re assignment, should you choose to accept it, do five small things every day that are kind and happiness creating gestures. These are small things, holding a door open for someone even if a person isn’t close behind you, letting someone into a traffic lane, giving a random small gift to someone, buy someone a cup of coffee or a muffin, or even just make an effort to say something kind to someone that you wouldn’t ordinarily say. If we all do this, if we all make this effort, we can all have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane