Trite but True: The Little Things in Life Matter!

Ah, Sunday! For most of us it is the one day of the week we get to have some breathing space, relax, and let the week of harried and busy activities float out of our thoughts.

I must say I was hesitant to write this post, as I thought it might sound silly, and not as meaningful as the moment I experienced.  Nonetheless, I’ll give it a go here and describe something that happened to me this past week.

As many of you know, I’m either on a train here in Chicago, waiting for a train, switching trains, or on my way to catch a train! Perhaps that’s why so many of my moments of observation take place in ‘train mode’, as it were!

I was meandering my way from one train to another.  Some of the platforms here in Chicago are quite narrow; a daunting task to carefully get past others when it’s rush hour.

As I carefully made my way on the platform, a young man was walking towards me, wearing a hooded jacket, his face looking downward, his feet in somewhat of a shuffle.  I saw him pass by several people.  When he walked past me, for some reason he looked up.  I saw his face for but a few fleeting seconds.  He looked sad, defeated in some way.

With a gentle smile I looked right at him and sent him immediate thoughts of kindness and compassion.  He looked at me, and for a millisecond I thought I saw a change in his eyes.  As he walked passed me he looked down again, hood encompassing his face.

Despite the fact it was such a small, perhaps seemingly insignificant event, I felt that maybe, just maybe he felt kindness from a stranger.  The little things in life do truly matter.  I think we must be mindful of how we treat others and how even though our seemingly little thoughtful gestures might not appear to us as important, you never know if what you’ve done or said in the blink of an eye has impacted another in a most significant way.

Food for thought, wonderful readers!