Be the Magic in Someone's Day
Helping other people is good on its own, but it also helps YOU.
Yesterday was such a sunny glorious day in the city I decided to take a walk along the river. After 10 or 15 minutes, I came across an older gentleman at a retirement community planting his garden, so I took out my AirPods and asked him about his crop.
“I’m planting tomatoes and acorn squash,” he said. “My wife and I used to plant a quarter acre in Hillsboro every spring, and starting July, she’d go out and harvest a big old bowl about yay tall and yay wide and we’d have the best dinners…” His name was Bill, and he’d worked in manufacturing before retirement.
He went on to tell me about the three children he raised, and how it was truly a miracle that such delicious food could grow from such a small seed. “All the information is in there, ya see. Life is a miracle.” I agreed. I listened, adding enthusiasm and asking questions when appropriate. At some point he started repeating himself, “you know, my wife and I—”
I didn’t say a word. He just wanted someone to talk to and tell his story, and I was that someone. After about 20 minutes he seemed satisfied and I told him I should be on my way, wished him a good crop, and teased him that I’d come back to collect my consulting fee when the tomatoes got ripe. He got a kick out of that.
99% of the time I’d have walked right past him, listening to a podcast, audiobook, or playlist—too selfish to be bothered or lacking the patience to listen to anyone. But as the name of this project suggests, I’m trying to get better. In this case its recovering from the illness that has infected our society called “I don’t care about people I don’t know.” Not sure exactly when this happened, but I’m certain that I caught the bug in high school, when most of us do, where being cool means you pretend it’s stupid to get excited, show enthusiasm, or being nice to people who aren’t “cool.” I’ve never been a mean person, and I’m naturally friendly, but I wasn’t nice to a lot of people back then—I wish I could find them and make amends.
Every day we have multiple opportunities to be the magic in someone’s day, but if we’re honest, most of the time we can’t be bothered—and that includes the people we know and love, even those we live with. How many times do parents, aunts and uncles, older siblings, or babysitters deny children the attention they deserve because they’re tired, or have other “better” things to do, opting to hand them an iPad or sit them in front of a screen. I’ve done it. The people who do this least often are grandparents, because they know time is fleeting. How many times do we walk past a person like Bill, dismiss a request from a friend to help out, or flake on friends who’ve set up a game night or some other social event because we’re “busy” or “tired.” Again, I’ve done it. Far too often.
I’m not suggesting we give more of ourselves than we can, and sometimes we really are too busy or tired to do anything other than take care of ourselves or our work. What I am suggesting is that our default mode is “no” when it should be “yes.” I wrote a novel called Say Yes about an alcoholic who said yes to drinking too often—not suggesting that! But maybe we should all develop an addiction to saying yes to other people…
Helping Others Helps You Too
Before I met Bill, I’d gotten out of a lunch with some clients I took out for administrative professionals day. Early on they let me know everything with my company’s service was going great, so the conversation shifted to one of the legal assistants who didn’t want stay on her current career path in law. Amidst tempura, miso, edamame, and some of the best teriyaki salmon I’ve ever had (Murata, for those in PDX—highly recommend), we hatched a plan to help her change careers, and I offered to send her resume along to various contacts I have in the industry. I’m certain she’ll make an amazing salesperson and account manager, and selfishly, it was fun to get to talk to her about how I switched careers.
But aside from the opportunity to talk about my job and career change, it was a great opportunity to build my professional network. Who knows—maybe she gets on at another company and they need to hire a sales manager and she recommends me. Maybe she gets a job with a different kind of vendor, but can connect me with potential new clients since we’re in the same industry. Or maybe she just crushes it and becomes a friend going forward. At the very least, I’m sure the other people at lunch will speak highly of me to their connections at other firms and carriers, and maybe that makes it easier to get meetings to expand my book of business.
Being helpful to others generates good will and good Karma. It will make you feel good in the moment for sure, but it’s also likely to be of material and/or relational benefit in the future. It’s a win-win for all involved. This is especially true in our relationships: every time you show the people in your life, whether at work, school, social circle, or family, that you’re willing to help them, the relationship is strengthened. And when people help us, we want to help them! There’s a natural desire that arises in us to pay that person back, so to speak. It’s not necessary: all gifts should be freely given. But our human nature remembers that kindness, and we have an inbuilt need for reciprocity. Sharing is deeply embedded in our DNA—I’m sure Bill would agree!
Help Others Even if it Won’t Directly Help You
I was feeling so damn good after talking to Bill that when a homeless man tried to sell me a Street Roots newspaper, I told him I didn’t need one, but gave him a $20 bill and wished him a good day. “It will be a very good day!” he said. Honestly, I don’t care how he spends it.1 I hope it’s on a good meal, but we all have to make our own decisions. What mattered is that someone saw him as a human being, and was generous and kind.
We should help others when we can, regardless of whether it helps us directly. As stated above, you will feel good at the very least. But perhaps the best way to make the world a better place for all is to practice kindness and generosity toward others, rather than waiting for our broken political system to act.2
One of the best times I remember having at work was an afternoon we spent putting food boxes together for those in need with my colleagues—me and my Sales Manager Chris did the salesiest thing ever and set a quota of how many we need to make and managed to beat it just barely. There are so many opportunities out there, whether volunteering with a local Boys and Girls Club, planting trees, cleaning up a park, coaching a little league team, mentoring a young person, etc. Imagine the difference it would make in our communities if we all spent just 10-20 hours a year doing something like the above—the results would be astonishing!
So, whenever you read this, make it a point to help someone. Be the magic in their day! I’ll give you an opportunity right now: share this, or any other post with another person via text, email, or social media, let me know you did it, and I’ll give you a free year’s subscription—OR if there’s some other, better way I can help you, just let me know. I’m really good at getting people jobs…just sayin!
I hope you’re having a wonderful week so far—namaste my friends!
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The most common reason people say not to do this is because they’re either a professional panhandler, or because the person is just going to spend the money on booze or drugs. For the former, this is mostly an urban legend. Only an extremely sick fuck would get up every morning, put on ragged, dirty clothes, and go to the local offramp to collect money—and I highly doubt this would be lucrative enough to actually provide a living income. For the latter, who cares? Maybe they will buy drugs or booze, and feel better for a short time. But not giving that person money doesn’t solve their addiction problem either, nor does starving or dying of exposure because they lack the money to buy food or shelter. It’s an act of kindness to give a homeless person money regardless of the circumstances—don’t overthink it.
It should! But that’s an entirely different topic for another time, if ever, as politics is not the focus of this project.