The Kindness of Strangers

Yesterday the bf and I found ourselves stuck at a servo with a flat tyre that did not wish to be removed from the axel. The bf tugged and tugged, sprayed the tyre with W-D 40 and tugged some more while I assessed the situation from a few feet away (seriously I was no help at all!). I was minutes away from suggesting we give up and call the RACV man when we were interupted by a random couple who offered us a hand. Sure enough with another man and some extra muscle the tyre quickly came free and we were on our way in no time.

We were both deeply appreciative of this random couple who leant us a hand, they had gone out of their way to help us and in doing so changed the entire outcome of the situation. In reality it probably took them all of 15 minutes to help us and it saved us a good few hours, I suspect, by the time we waited for help to arrive and remove the tyre etc.

But it got me thinking about the kindness of strangers, about how something so little can really improve someone else's day and how it's so important to be a kind stranger. We can't all donate money to charity or volunteer hours of time to a good cause but there are heaps of little things we can do everyday to be a kind stranger; from holding the door open, letting someone know they've dropped something, offering up a seat on public transport, helping a parent with a pram, holding the elevator or just offering a kind smile, we can all be kind strangers and make this world a little bit better for someone we may never know.