Mild acts of kindness – 200 words project

Here is this week’s 200 words project – from the The Barefoot Warrior: The Journey of a Young Adult in Search of His True Nature

by Kyle Weaver

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The thought crossed Kyle’s mind, what if everyone on earth was an angel of sorts, poised and ready for mild acts of kindness each and every moment? What if the world’s greatest problem was that most people had just forgotten that simple fact?

– The Barefoot Warrior by Kyle Weaver

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After reading this, I decided to do an experiment. For the next few hours, I decided look at everyone as one of these angels. And it’s true, the angels were everywhere.

The car, on my way to work, slowing down to let me merge in, when they didn’t have to. My colleague, who held the door open for me. The admin lady, who upon seeing my oatmeal overflow, insisted on helping with the mess. My husband, who last night had not only cleaned the dirty dishes, but wiped the counter top, put away all the toys and tidied the entire place – all when he was tired too. My daughter who gave me a big hug and a sloppy kiss as soon as she saw me this morning. My cat who just came and petted me.

When I looked, these angels where everywhere. Then around lunch time, something happened – I forgot. There was this other person in traffic who cut me off, and then flipped a finger – and I was mad and fuming –  and started looking at people around me as aggravating, annoying persons who should know better.

And sure enough, aggravation was everywhere. The bright, happy, sunny morning was replaced by this dank, dark afternoon of me simmering in my own discontent angry at people.

Thinking about my day at the dinner table,  I was struck with how much of an effect I had on how my day went. My morning was beautiful. My afternoon was aggravating. All because I was looking for angels in the morning and I found them – everywhere. By afternoon, I forgot about angels, and I didn’t see any, couldn’t see any because I had forgotten what angels were like!