Kindness With No Expectation of Being Recognized is Painless

tom, see story, relaxing on another mountain

Your day could be going down the pan, nothing going well. Then, from some unexpected corner, a smile, a kind word or a simple gesture of kindness can turn it all round.

Such acts of kindness, often spontaneous, can and do, emerge from the most unusual and unexpected corners, often in times of embarrassment or even in times of sadness.

Not only can they be good for the recipient, but perhaps, can have a positive effect on the ‘deliverer’.

Before recounting such a tale, I would like to differentiate between the scripted and the spontaneous.

I worked at a reasonably high level in a large organisation that employed personal relations experts preparing every word you uttered after a serious incident. The organisation’s spokesperson, slips in this phrase early in the proceedings, ‘ our thoughts are with the’ — whoever their thoughts are supposed to be with.

My issue with this approach takes me back to my early service when, after a serious incident, the media had gathered and were waiting impatiently for the senior officer in charge to make an appearance. He kept them waiting a while.

When asked later why the delay, his response became my guidance for the rest of my service.

He said,

‘My thoughts concerning the injured or deceased, or whoever, I will express to them, in person and before I address the media. Otherwise it is just a hollow utterance.’

The spontaneous act, given out with the blaze of publicity with no expectation of public knowledge or recognition is, in my humble opinion that more meaningful.

My example of unsolicited kindness involves embarrassment, a shepherd and his lovely wife and a blundering fool. That will be me.

A climbing friend and I, Tom, in picture, a few years ago, made a trip to Kerry in Ireland to climb Carrauntoohil, at 3404 feet, Ireland’s highest mountain, in the stunning range known as MacGillycuddy’s Reeks.

A hasty check of the map noted two things; the road was a dead end stopping at Cronin’s Farm yard, where parking was allowed for the Princely sum of one Irish Punt. I also noticed we would pass a Youth Hostel on the way to Cronin’s Farm, not that we needed to know that.

While Tom was putting his boots on, I strode over to the ‘Hostel’ to pay for parking. I knocked on the door, opened it and confidently walked in, Punt in hand, looking for the non existent Reception desk.

At a kitchen table, directly in front of me sat an older gentleman, complete with waistcoat and cloth cap, pushed back on his head, tucking into what I took to be his breakfast. He looked up and silently stared at me as though my intrusion was a normal occurrence. A lady’s voice to my left and slightly behind me said, in a lovely Irish lilt,’ can I help you?’ I looked over my left shoulder, there she was, complete with apron, hands in a sink of dishes.

A thought flashed through my mind, it had no difficulty because at that moment there was nothing else in there to prevent it, and it emerged as a kind of mumble,

‘hmmm, this is not a Hostel.’

She calmly and with a smile replied, ‘No, the hostel is about a mile down the road, you passed it’.

I apologising profusely for bursting into the kitchen of their home unannounced. I then meekly proffered the single Punt, in the hope the gesture would reduce the tension I was feeling and allow me to park my car.

The lady, drying her hands on her apron, still smiling said, ‘you are not from around here?’

‘No’, I replied, ‘I live in Scotland’.

‘I am so sorry’, I repeated as I desperately looked around for the escape hatch.

‘Oh, just visiting then? Are you off to climb Carrauntoohil’, she enquired. ‘I think it might rain’.

At no time during this short conversation did she display any other emotion than calmness. Perhaps kindness might describe it better. It was as though she realised how embarrassed I was and her aim was to make me feel welcome. As though I had known her all my life.

She then told me her daughter had studied at the University of Dundee, and asked if I new Dundee well.

Her next remark evidences all I need to say about decent folks, wherever they are from, because our globe abounds with them.

She asked if I had eaten and would I like some breakfast?

I explained that I was not alone and that my friend Tom was waiting for me outside, to which she replied, ‘well, don’t just leave him out there, bring him in’.

So that is how, Tom and I got breakfast and tea at Cronin’s Yard and parking, all for the princely sum of one Punt.

Don’t be shy, Don’t be bashful, be kind.

It really is painless.