When I was sitting in Chicago Midway Airport at the baggage claim, waiting for my ride back to school, a middle-aged man asked a college age boy next to me if he had a spare iPhone charger he could use for a couple minutes. The boy said he didn’t have an extra and the man looked at me for a second and started to walk away. I said, “Excuse me I have a charger.” He sat down next to me and started talking.

He was extremely grateful — he said thank you at least five times in a row — and then he told me, “I wish there was a bar around here, I would buy you a beer.” I told him jokingly that I was not quite 21 anyway, and he laughed and said, “Your parents raised you right; you’re a very good person.”

I didn’t quite know how to respond to that immense compliment, so I just said thank you and laughed. He asked me about what I was studying, and we had a casual conversation for about five minutes. When he got up to leave, he thanked me again. He said, “I’m happy there are still nice people in the world because nice people make other people happy. You know, if you do good for someone it comes back to you. You have some good karma coming.”

I sat there feeling slightly overwhelmed with praise. All I did was lend a phone charger I didn’t need, but then I realized there were times I didn’t perform those small acts either out of pure laziness or a mindset that it wasn’t my place to help. What I realized is that the small acts of helping someone with a little problem go along way. I could tell that that man was happy to finally talk to a person after a probably long and quiet flight, and my helping gave him a reason to talk.

I could tell what I did also gave him a sense of hope. There are so many stereotypes about our generation being self-centered and rude, and I could tell it was refreshing for him to run into a young person who didn’t mind lending a hand and chatting. He really put me in a great mood because I didn’t realize how easy it was to make someone's day better. It is instances such as these that make me grateful to live in a world where there are people like this man who are outgoing and nice and just make my day better with their conversation.

Every interaction we have matters. It is the small gestures of kindness — such as lending a charger or just giving a smile — that can really brighten someone's day. When this man told me I was a good person I was caught off guard. I have done very rude and selfish things; however to him, this doesn’t happen often enough. Acts such as mine shouldn't be worth all that praise — they should be a norm. It is our job as a human race to take into consideration the struggles of everyone around us, send out positivity and help each other. One little act can send a chain reaction of happiness and touch people who we don't even know in ways we would never predict, it’s so easy to make a huge difference. What goes around does come around.