Category Archives: January – One Random Act of Kindness per Day

Day 24 – A Candy Cane for the Homeless

Posted on by
Reply

Today’s random act of kindness happened kind of serendipitously.  It all started while I was at work dropping off used batteries into the recycling bin near the admin of another team.  She smiled at me, thanked me for recycling, and gave me a candy cane which was left over from the Christmas season.  I stuffed it in my jacket pocket and forgot about it until about 7pm when I was back in Boston walking home from Trader Joes.  That particular walk up Boylston Street usually involves being confronted (read: mildly harassed) by homeless people for money.  Without fail, walking up Boylston Street after work will result in someone shaking a tin can at you for money.  The homeless guys who are funny and try to tell jokes seem to do better than everyone else.  Some of them are actually hysterically funny.

Today in particular I had been trying to think of something kind to do but nothing really popped up as the day went along.  I thought about giving money to one of the homeless people but I don’t feel great about doing that because who knows what they’ll do with that money.  Not only does it not fix the problem, it can often perpetuate the problem.  This is why on Day 10 I asked the homeless guy outside CVS if he wanted some food instead of me giving him money (he asked for a coke but that’s besides the point).  So this time one of the funnier guys locked eyes with me (rookie mistake on my part) and asked for some spare change.  I then realized that I had to respond, you can’t just lock eyes with someone and then not say anything.  That’s when I remembered the candy cane in my pocket so I said, “Hey, I don’t have any change, but would you like a candy cane instead?”  He said, “Hell yeah brother, thank you very much, thank you very much, God bless you.”  It was a fleeting moment because I kept walking to my destination after I dropped the candy cane in his tin cup.

Part of me wanted to stay and talk with him to figure out his story but the part of me that kept walking felt fine with simply doing something nice for him and then moving on without making a big deal about it.  Hopefully he was pleasantly surprised by the random act of kindness.  I’m sure it’s not something he sees every day but who doesn’t want to randomly get a candy cane?  If I were homeless and begging for money, I would be stoked if someone came by and dropped a candy cane in my jar.

Day 23 – Blind Navigation on the MBTA

Posted on by
Reply

A few days ago I saw a new person on the daily commute getting off at the same stop as I do.  Usually it’s pretty easy to tell who is new because it’s typically the same 12-15 people who commute to work everyday and get off at my stop.  These are the same 12-15 people I met during my “One Conversation per Day on Public Transit” month in September.  This man in particular was especially noticeable because he was blind and had an absolutely gorgeous German Shepard puppy (1-2 years old) as a seeing-eye-dog.

He got off the train and it was snowing, I noticed he was just standing there on the platform.  I was going to go over to him and ask if he needed help but one of the other commuters beat me to it.  I overheard him say he was fine and that he was just waiting for a coworker to come pick him up.  I found out that he works for the city’s Police Department.  I’m not sure what exactly he does but I’m sure I’ll find out.

Today I saw him again but not until we got back into the city.  We were about to get off at the same stop.  I let him go ahead of me and he gingerly walked down the stairs to get off the train and came uncomfortably close to stepping between the train and the platform.  A few of us, including the conductor, noticed that he was going to step short so we kind of yelled to step farther and he readjusted and made the landing.  His dog is also very young so he’s a bit jittery and wanted to sniff out the pigeons that hang out in the station so the dog definitely didn’t help him stabilize on the stairs.  I’m glad he made it down in one piece though.

When I got off the train I asked him if he needed help in getting where he was going.  He said, “Sure thing, just going to get on another commuter rail.”  I remember thinking to myself, “Holy crap, this guy takes two commuter rails to get to work, AND he’s blind?!”  What an amazing guy, it’s hard enough to navigate the MBTA as a sighted person, let alone make a commuter rail transfer (never obvious because the tracks can change from day to day).  So he grabbed my elbow and we walked through the station up and down large sets of stairs and I brought him to his train platform.  I cannot imagine having to do this blind every single day.  Hopefully his dog settles down and gets used to the routine.  However, even if his dog gets used to it, the tracks can often change so it’ll be hard for him to know which track the train will arrive on and then how to get to that platform.

We talked about our jobs, his dog, and various other things as we walked.  I was really impressed by this guy.  I was just blown away by his positive attitude, fearlessness, and confidence.  He was happy as a clam to be working for the Police Department even if it meant navigating Boston Public Transit with a rowdy puppy as a seeing-eye-dog.  Normally I would have let him do his thing and not offered to help, figuring that if he’s blind in the city then he can obviously fend for himself.  This might be true, I’m sure he can take care of himself, however, I’m also sure that he was glad when someone offered him a hand so he didn’t have to navigate himself.  If I were blind I would take great pride in being able to successfully navigate the MBTA but I would definitely say yes if someone randomly offered to help make it easier.

Day 22 – RelayRides for Groceries

Posted on by
1

We got back to Boston from two days of climbing sore, tired, hungry, and happy.  Immediately after returning to civilization, a few of us gave a winter climbing safety seminar to students from the Tufts Mountain Club.  There was no better way to teach this topic than to show up all geared out from a weekend of climbing.  After this meeting I had planned to hang out with Sarah.  She just moved into a new house and has been complaining about not having any food b/c without a car it’s sometimes hard to get to a grocery store.  She has some basics but nothing for a serious meal.  However, after a weekend of being out in the cold I wasn’t exactly psyched about going on a grocery shopping adventure.  I was more interested in a beer and a nap.  However, I knew that it wouldn’t take much effort and it would make her really happy, so it would be a win-win for everyone if I brought her shopping.  I offered to use Zipcar or RelayRides to take her to Trader Joes.

 

 

Both companies do car sharing by the hour only Zipcar has a fleet of new(ish) cars parked in strategic locations throughout the city while RelayRides is peer-peer car sharing, so you are renting someone else’s car by the hour (the Myers Bridges ENFJ in me makes me like this community sharing model better).  To read up about how this process works, both as a car borrower and a car lender, check out their website, it’s actually a quite ingenious concept. We looked up Zipcars in the area but due to the last minute nature of our grocery shopping expedition, the only cars available were $10.75/hour and I didn’t feel great about spending $11 to go to the grocery store.  Usually there are $8 cars available of you reserve them ahead of time, but today we were in a time crunch.  Then I realized that I had $25 of free driving credit with RelayRides as I am a new member and hadn’t done any driving yet.   For all intents and purposes, the process is exactly the same as Zipcar.  You login online, put in your location and your timeframe, and search for cars that are conveniently close and in the right price range.

I found a brand new Honda Civic right down the street.  I just had to hold my card to the sensor on the windshield and the car unlocked itself.  We managed to make it to and from Trader Joes in less than an hour, spending only $6 of my $25 of free driving credit.  So I didn’t have to spend any money and I was able to help Sarah stock her kitchen with food.  While searching for cars online I found out that someone has a really nice convertible up for rent on RelayRides (they provide bomber insurance apparently).  So once the weather gets a bit warmer I plan to do some cruising around with the top down.  The best part about it is that the car is someone else’s!  Win for me.

image

Me outside of Trader Joe's in my climbing getup with two of our own shopping bags. Look at us being all green and stuff :)

Sarah was grateful that I used my random act of kindness on her today.  She came up with the suggestion for next month’s experiment that I should repeat this month’s experiment only do random acts of kindness for her every day.  I said I’d think about it :)

Day 21 – Paid Someone’s Highway Toll

Posted on by
2

The morning after hot tubing at my buddies house, my group of four other stoked ice climbers headed north in search of some fat ice flows.  On the way the discussion in the car converged on my random acts of kindness challenge and what I was going to do for that day.  I start each day the same way, having no idea what I’m going to do for my random act.  Usually it’s 8 or 9pm before actually I do it.  I wonder whether it’s because the most opportunities exist around that time, or (more likely) because I’m under the gun for completing a random act of kindness before the end of the day and I don’t have much time left.  So perhaps out of necessity, after 8pm is when I’m the most aware and cognizant of the environment around me.

Today on the way to New Hampshire I decided that I would complete my act earlier rather than later considering we would be out ice climbing all day.  So on the way through one of the toll booths I had my buddy (the driver of the Honda Fit) drive through an EZ Pass/Cash lane as opposed to an EZ Pass Only lane so that I could leave a dollar to pay the toll for the next person behind us.  I had my buddy say to the toll booth attendant, “Hey, here’s the toll fare for the next person that comes through.  It’s a random act of kindness.”  The toll booth guy kind of laughed and said, “Yeah sure” and we pulled away.

It was of much debate in the car as to whether the toll booth attendant would actually use that dollar on the next car (there weren’t any cars immediately behind us) or whether he would just pocket it for himself.  I guess there’s no guarantee that my random act of kindness ever came to fruition.  I’d like to think that he carried out my act but honestly who knows.  Was his sense of altruism worth more than a dollar?

We then launched into a debate about “trust” in a city versus a small town.  Where I’m from this type of behavior is pretty normal and I wouldn’t have doubted this guy for a second.  However, being just outside of Boston, myself and my friends in the car immediately questioned his intentions and his overall character.  I wanted to be able to trust him but there’s really no way to tell for sure.  That’s just life in a city I suppose, you have to be a little bit more aware of the intentions of those around you.  Unlike doing the same thing in Maine, I’ll likely never see that guy again, so what’s his incentive to carry out my random act of kindness?  The answer is that I’m not sure.  All I know is that my intentions were the same, hopefully that dollar had the chance to be a nice surprise for the next car that came through.