I was coming back from work, exhausted and not in the mood for anything, and I got on a very crowded bus. I found an empty seat and sat down. After a while, an elderly man got on, and he looked tired and was standing. Without thinking, I got up and gave him my seat.
He thanked me with a simple smile, and after a bit, he started talking to me. He asked about my work and how life was going. We were talking normally, and I felt like he was a kind and calm person.
Suddenly, he said, “I haven’t spoken to anyone for four days, I just needed someone to listen to me.”
That really affected me. I couldn’t respond, but I just listened until he got off. I realized how small gestures can make a big difference in someone’s day.
Have you ever had a small moment like this that made your day different? Or made you change your perspective on something you thought was ordinary?
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Those types of exchanges are the best!
We are pack animals that have outgrown our need for the pack, and taught to value independence while hiding the “weaknesses” from one another that we all share. It makes for a lonely world full of lonely people. That guy’s day was changed from this interaction as well, maybe even his whole week or month.
You’re a good soul and did a great deed. I’ve seen too many people just stare away on their phones, not even paying attention to those who may be in need. May your kindness be returned many times over.
Thanks man. That was really decent of you
Wow! Such a touching story.
Back in december I had a very deep moment when I was definitely not expecting. It was friday night and I went to the market with my boyfriend to buy pizza. There’s always people in front of there asking the customers to buy items for them. Sometimes, they can get really invasive or even agressive, so I started to avoid talking to them. It wasn’t different that friday night. A woman asked me for food and I quickly said that i couldn’t help her that night. Something in her eyes after I answered her touched me and I couldn’t tell why. It’s like it lost the brightness, idk.
As my boyfriend and I were inside the market, I got so uneasy about that woman that I decided to buy what she asked and felt like I should stop and talk a while with her. She thanked me a lot for the food and for talking with her. Told me that she was responsible for taking care of her sick mom and the younger brothers. She couldn’t find a job because she didn’t finish school, and because she’s a trans woman with no resources to proceed with her transition. Everything was so difficult, and yet, she had to deal with being ignored, humiliated and scorned while asking for food to feed her family. Because all of that, she told me that she was seriously considering ending her life, and, as I went to talk to her, she looked at it as a sign not to do this cause there was still good people around the world. She cried, I cried, and then we hugged. I never saw her again, but she’s forever in my dearest memories.
I work in healthcare. Geriatric patients always get a little extra care from me since I know that I may be one of the few people they may talk to that day. My goal is try and make them laugh at least once.
So easy to do, so impactful to so many people.
I was walking my mother through the hospital one day going to her oncologist and saw a woman struggling and opened the door for her she broke down in tears and hug me and said I was the nicest thing anyways done for her in years. I stood there half shocked thinking man this is just how I was raised.. we all just got to stop and think how easy it is to help somebody without impacting our lives at all.
Bravo to you, kind soul!
❤️
I had a similar experience about two years ago. I offered my seat at the train station to an elderly lady. She struck up some light conversation, and then we boarded the train and sat together.
She asked me what I do for work (chef), and if I ever get scared coming home late at night. I told her that about a week or two earlier a man followed then chased me for about 800m, before I jumped in front of a moving car (happened to be an off duty taxi, thank god), and convinced the driver to get me out of there. She told me about her own close encounters over the years.
We continued chatting the entire length of the train line, before we got off and went out separate ways. It was exactly the conversation I needed at the time.
I once talked to an old lady nearing 100 years. She told me in no uncertain terms she wanted to die. All her friends are dead. She’s living alone. Blind in on eye. Loosing sight in the other. Loosing grip strength due to gout. Having a hard time walking. Basically only living between her bed, her armchair and her toilet. Her mind still was super clear. She was funny, intelligent and witty. But she didn’t want to live anymore.
That conversation did something to me and still sticks with me.
i was very high and gaming for more or less a week, during which i kept sitting in some idiotic way until my back startet hurting like a motherfucker. i couldnt even think straight and walking was nearly impossible because everything was pain so i basically occupied myself with breathing, surviving and hiking to the toilet for the next 4 days until i finally actually made it to the doktor a km down the road on day 4. he gave me some pill and it got better in the next h. it was bascially my backmuscles cramping the whole time. feeling them finally release was maybe the best ive ever felt
i learned that a bodyly problems are not just some mild inconvenience, but they might acually steal your soul. in my previous position i had a lot of time to think but could onlky do so very rudimental because i needed around 80% of my brain to not die at any given moment. i didnt think it would just go away like it luckyliy did so i thought about all the stuff i did outside when i actually went out once in a blue moon. and everything i used to do or like was just so far away that i kinda lost that part of me alltogehter for the time beeing.
so basically i take way less stuff, eat better and ride my bike >10km daily and am actually fit since then without even really trying. my braindamage seems to have hit a sweetspot or it scared itself into submission. idk. it doesnt really tell me
I das a
I was walking down the sidewalk & I gave a “hello” smile to an older guy who looked a little rough, riding his bike the opposite direction. I turned around when I heard his breaks squeak & he had a big smile & said “little lady, you just made my day!” His smile made me smile. It reminds me that a little positive action & acknowledgment of each other can make a difference in someone’s day
What an absolutely lovely thing for you to do. Not only give up your seat but also engage in conversation. You’ll have no idea how much that interaction will have meant to the man.
I hope the universe rewards your kindness.
Sometimes I think I dont need anybody. Other days the postman is the most fascinating person Ive ever talked to.
Apoarently I do need to interact with others. 🤷♂️
Yeah. I’m an OT working in skilled nursing for 15 years and it’s my second career, so I’ve transitioned from being in my mid 30s to 50s… and I reflect on this more and more…we like to think of the elderly as somehow “them” and not us…as if that fragility , vulnerability, and almost inevitable isolation is foreign to us.
The loss of dignity becomes the loss of identity. I sometimes feel I do more “help” just listening as a fellow human, with sincerity, than any of the therapy I bill for.
Who in their right mind actually falls for this fake story karma bait? Guess r/self is just a more melodramatic r/stories?
I used to be an Audiologist and sometimes we would get patients book appointments for “adjustments”. My appointments for services would typically be 30 mins long.
They would come in and say that the hearing aid wasn’t working or that they struggled to hear the TV. I’d check the hearing aid whilst talking to them. Lo and behold within 5 minutes It was fixed or working even though I’d really done almost nothing at all. I would then spend the rest of the half hour talking to them about their lives, about their kids, about their cats, about their wife or husband who died a few years ago, about the holidays they’d wished they’d taken.
I enjoyed my job but it did take a toll.
Do me a favour, call your parents or your grandparents if you can. They’d love to just hear your voice.
I was in line in the grocery store with three or four items. The person in front of me had a shopping cart that was full.
When it was her turn to be rung up, she didn’t offer to let me go ahead of her and I’ll admit, I was fuming. I always let a person in front of me if have a lot of stuff and they have only a few items.
Outwardly I was calm but on the inside I was fuming.
Finally it was my turn. I finish paying, grab my bags and walk to the exit.
While I was checking out, it started pouring. I’m standing there trying to figure out where my car is and the best way to get to it and notice an elderly man with a walker and some groceries.
I offer to help him get to his car and he accepts. I hold my umbrella over his head and carry his groceries with mine and we walk slowly to his car.
When I get him settled in, he thanks me for being a blessing and says, “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
I realized then that something I thought was an inconvenience was actually a gift from the universe about timing.
You’re a real life angel, not for the seat but that it meant something to you what he said. Don’t ever change
Good morning,
Thank you for your sharing and your gesture!
It happens relatively rarely, but there are sometimes nice fleeting encounters on public transport.
In these rare cases, I still wonder why we all cordially ignore each other in this world when it is enough to speak normally, smile and realize that we all only dream of being “connected” to others.
What kills us is loneliness and ignorance.
This is why I hardly ever use the self-checkouts. Small “meaningless” interactions actually mean the world.
Thank you for sharing that experience. It’s little acts of kindness that remind us there’s still good in the world!
Many years ago, before everyone had a mobile phone, I was at a train station where this middle-aged man was desperately asking around for some money to make a phone call. When he asked me I gave him all the change in my wallet (it wasn’t a lot but more than he needed for a call) and he was so incredibly grateful I was embarrassed because it was just the bit of change I had on me. But everyone else ignored or refused him, and he just needed to make a call so he could get picked up. I often wonder what would happen to our world if we were all just a little bit kinder to each other!
I used to be one of those people who hated small talk, but this is one of the reasons why I’m the opposite now. Will happily have a good conversation with someone (especially older people) whether it’s in a shop, on public transport, in the pub etc. A little 5 minute chat with someone might mean nothing to most people but for someone it could make their day.
My husband and I were working in a remote area, and it wasn’t unusual to go for over 6 weeks without seeing another person. The times we would be in town just talking to the person at the checkout would be the best part of my month. A smile and a hello from a stranger can really change someone else’s day. I was at least lucky to have my husband during those years, so I always try to take the time to smile when I can at people because they might not have even had that in days.
That is exactly why I make a point of speaking to elderly folks in the grocery store, post office, etc, even if it is just about the weather. Can’t hurt and maybe helps.
When working in a call centre, I was often pressured to get a call done ASAP, but sometimes, all I was asked was, “How much is my bill?”
I noticed that this was often from elderly people, and I realised after a while, I might be the only person in the world they interact with that whole day (or even longer as OP has stated)
So, I’d often spend 10 minutes or more speaking to them about anything they wanted to, share a joke, talk about my plans, ask about them, and their day, and thank them for their time afterwards.
It isn’t much, but, as above, I may have been the only person they have spoken to in a while, and I wanted that to be a positive experience for us. And this may have been a pleasant exchange for them also.
As we all go about our days, we can often be bogged down by our own issues and fail to recognise some form of discontent in others. Nobody knows what another person is going through, so being courteous and thoughtful with the odd kind gesture may be something small to us but could mean the world to another.
It was a lovely gesture OP, you did something small and it was well appreciated, carry on the way you are, you seem like a cool person.
Good job being kind. It must be so disheartening to be alone and lonely and see the whole future stretched out in front of you a quiet landscape of alienation.
Similar story time.
I make homemade cookies & baked goods and sell them on weekends at craft shows and pop-ups. I was at a show last weekend and a couple of ladies stopped by my table. They browsed but told me they probably weren’t going to buy anything — no problem. Still happy to have folks in my space. One of them moved on to the next table pretty quickly, but the other one stayed and was looking at my stuff. She asked about my process, how I came up with my recipes and ideas, how I got into selling. I chatted with her for a while. She was in town for the weekend for a family reunion and her and her sister were out spending the afternoon together.
Eventually she moved on, but she came back a little while later and took my hand and told me how glad she was to talk to me for a little while. Really made my day, and it does make you stop and really think about what other people are going through even when everything seems “normal.”
Susie, if you’re out there, I hope you’re well.
Im saving this in hopes I can stop being such an asshole sometimes.
I call it the atomization of the family and society. Everyone disagrees with each other on every political issue, religion, culture, manners, standards, solutions, hierarchy of values, traditions, rituals, customs, etc. The individualist and atomizing culture of America leads to families having different religions and political beliefs and lifestyles.
We have lost all the things that united people in America- The Can-do spirit, mass production of associations and mutual aid societies, a common Protestant moral underpinning, etc.
My mom was in an intersection coming out of a restaurant in another country that used to be far more communitarian and socially interacting. It was pouring outside, and she saw a food delivery man on a motorcycle coming toward the intersection, but he hydroplaned and was thrown off of his bike as he tried to brake. My mom is 65 years old, she was the only person, in a 4 way intersection full of crowds of people to run through the intersection and tried to help the person. She was yelling in the rain, “Please someone help!”, and no one would help. No one even was calling the ambulance. She called the ambulance immediately. After her call, she was so frustrated that she yelled out into the void, “Can anyone not see a human being needs help here?” She said the blank stares she got back in response was so horrifying, that she can’t look at humans the same way anymore. I’ve had similar experiences.
Pew research shows that people are more loyal to their political party now than to their religion, family, sex, age group, or any other identity. Their studies show that Americans until the 90’s agreed generally on 75% of values. Now they only agree on 35-40%.
Also Social media and anyone being able to influence everyone else freely bypassing parental and safeguards for societal sanity.
Studies also show that from all the secular and religious communes throughout American history, religious communes will suffer longer together, help each other, and last on average 4 times as long as secular communes. In the 1960’s, 90% of America was Christian. By the 1990’s, 80%. Now it’s 64% but mostly non-practicing. We lost a non-political glue and bond to hold us together besides political factions. We also had civic patriotism and active participation in civics we lost as well. Most states required 3 years of civic classes and you had to pass a civics exam to graduate high school. The secular bond is gone as well.
People are starting to see their family, neighbors, countryman, states, regions, rural vs urban, as enemies. Generations don’t understand each other and don’t speak any common “language” or shared experience or customs, rituals, rites of passage, etc. In 1895, educated middle class and higher women in New England were asked if they wanted the right to vote, 95% of them said no. When asked why, one of the more popular answers was that they did not want to divide the husband and wife through politics, and that politics would split them against each other for their own advantages.
Religious vs Secular Communes. Religious communes lasted 4 times as longer, and people were more willing to sacrifice for each other and suffer together.
Access to infinite entertainment through TV and Computers and iphones.
Social Media exponentially multiplying influencing, even though the Printing Press and literacy/radio/TV multiplied influence before, this was a new level. We now have a freer market than ever of false preachers, politicians, pundits, Peter Pans, perverts, professors, peddlers, and political activists than ever before.
We have become so fractionated and individualized that we can’t even get along with our families or citizens anymore. Every family member and community has different religions and their interpretations, their politics, their values, their own hierarchy of values, their own ethics, their own morals, their own hobbies, their own content that they consume. What’s next? Their own language?
I was taking the subway home from work. An older homeless man got on and was talking to himself and acting erratically. A number of other riders moved away from him, but I kept my position. (I’m a larger guy and crazy doesn’t scare me.) He approached me and asked what train line we were on. I told the line and the direction. He began to study the map on the train wall. I asked him if he needed help navigating. He told me his destination. I walked him through the route I’d take while referring to the map on the wall. The man thanked me and offered his hand, which I shook. He told me that it was nice to feel like some could see him again, before taking his seat.
Anytime anyone smiles at me or says hi when we cross paths always makes my day. to feel like you aren’t good enough to receive a small gesture when passing by always puts me in a depressed mood even though they might just be having there own issues or something.
I wonder if this changes as we get older because right now, talking to a stranger would make me feel worse about myself but old people love talking to me for some reason.
No and I don’t care if I speak to anyone or anyone speaks to me.