Looking for a lift? Try kindness

Kindness is one of the quickest ways to lift your mood and heart. Here are some of my favorite examples.

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

In a world where people roam the earth looking for ways to feel happy - from extreme adventure to exotic adventure to hallucinogenic highs - some of the best, most reliable ways to reach happiness are all around us: including expressing gratitude and showing kindness.

"We all seek a path to happiness," says Dr. Waguih William Ishak, a professor of psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai. "Practicing kindness toward others is one we know works."

Small and simple ways to let others know they matter - and help them out - can lift us as much as anyone. There’s even research confirming these positive benefits.

Witnessing these kinds of moments gives me a boost - and motivates me to try to make more of them happen around me. So, forget the cat videos & sports highlights for a moment. Check out some of my favorites I’ve gathered:

1. Cake from a 98-year old neighbor:

2. Girl cuts the pancakes of an old man whose hands don’t work:

3. Teenagers befriend an autistic boy - ”You just want to see the kindness in the world”:

4. Waitress noticing a couple didn’t bring their baby in this time:

5. Boy who loves basketball, but didn’t have a hoop:

6. ‘Forgot your wallet? I’ll pay for it.’

6. Garbage man helping woman get to her home

“There are, it turns out, so many people doing right” - like this Fedex worker shoveling driveways before leaving a package or a “garbage man” (sanitation worker) who walks an elderly resident back to her home each week as she gets her garbage.

7. Girl comforting a deaf man

Or a 15-year-old teenage girl, who comforted and helped a deaf man needing sign language assistance on a flight.

As another person on the flight said afterwards:

8. ‘Here, have my shoes’

Bus driver gives her shoes to a homeless woman on a hot day to protect her feet:

9. Bus driver father figure, new playground + more

Children raise money for new playground equipment for disabled kids - and bus driver makes a huge difference for kids. The bus driver is the “best part of his day” - describing the divorce that changed his family and saying “I wish my dad had been like that.”

10. A janitor’s dream + more

High school football players raise money to get their janitor a dream. “I will never ever forget today” - Frances sends money to relatives in Ghana

11. A smile for a grieving widow

Grieving widow gets a smile from man who randomly buys her lunch. Calvin’s kindess was “exactly what was needed at exactly the time she needed it” - so much so that she followed him and tracked him down. Now, she does the same for other people - “he’s showed me the way.”

12. Shoes for a homeless man + lots more

A man giving a homeless man the shirt off his back, police officers buying shoes for a homeless man and helping tie a guy’s tie he just pulled over, special needs boy scoring a touchdown - “I’m not religious, I just wanted to help someone.”

13. Carrying her bag

One man carries an injured woman’s bag at the airport - helping her get on the plane. “It’s sad our society has eroded to the point that I’m on TV for this” the man said - this is just “being a human being.”

“This is what America should be - and hopefully, this is the America of tomorrow.”

14. Helping the homeless + more

15. Steven Hartman also put on an amazing special:

The amazing thing about all of these: