A few weeks ago, during one of the many days that people were on campus working on the landscape, one of the workers gave me a flower that had recently been trimmed off one of the bushes outside of my dorm. I hadn’t planned on going back to my room at the time, but the line at Starbucks was shorter than I had anticipated, and I had some time to kill before I had to be in class.
I walked back to my dorm, and he handed me the flower. With a polite smile and a simple, “thank you,” I walked inside. The entire way up to my room, I couldn’t stop smiling and looking at the flower. This worker had trimmed all the bushes and was talking to another one of the workers and at some point, decided to give one of the trimmed flowers to me.
He had no idea who I was or what my day had been like, but he decided to stop his conversation and give me this flower. A flower that made my entire day better. A flower that put a smile on my face. A small, simple flower that affected my entire mood.
This goes to show that one small gesture or somewhat meaningless object can affect someone greatly. We often hear the phrase, “A little goes a long way” when talking about a variety of things from perfume or cologne to butter and salad dressing. However, it can also be used in the things that we do for someone else.
Whether it’s simply giving someone a flower or buying someone a snack or coffee, you never know the affects that it can have on someone’s mood, attitude, or day. I certainly have never put much thought into how certain things such as these can affect someone. It may seem silly or too thought out, but what if you can change someone’s day like the worker did for me?
In today’s society, there is a lot of rushing around to get things done or to get somewhere, but what if we slowed down for just a minute to do something for someone else? What if we stopped to open a door for someone, or offered a smile to someone who was walking passed us? What if we bought an extra candy bar or coffee, and gave it to someone we thought could use it?
I don’t just mean people you don’t know either. Doing something random for someone you do know can often seem strange or embarrassing, but what if it made their day a little better? To me, it seems worth it to think about someone else for even just a second and do something small for them even if it doesn’t change their day.
This worker may never know how much that flower affected me, but I will always remember it because it was something so small that has such a big impact on me that day. So, I encourage you to slow down and think about someone else for a change. Do something random for someone just because you feel like it or you think they could use it to pick their spirits up. You may never know the impact that you leave on them, but they will.
