Swapping out GPS with Kindness
Recently my office shifted to the other side of the city. My usual Uber trips turned out to be prohibitively expensive and so I started exploring public transport. In my quest to try various options, something small yet beautiful happened. I was comfortable with buses and trains when everything including my phone was inside my backpack so that my hands could hold the railing easily. This small change in my commute made it difficult to use Google Maps. I started doing the primitive thing of asking people for directions.
The first person who helped me with directions was a young girl. She walked with me to the bus stop and we boarded the same bus together. We sat on different rows but when it was her stop, she came to my seat and explained that I would have to get down two stops from this one. As she walked away she again turned back and told the girl sitting next to me to make sure I got down at the right stop. Her kindness made my day!
Another day, when I was trying a different connecting route, a guy walked with me to the metro that I was going to have to board, gave me tips for the morning commute the next day and waved me off. Another one happened when a commuter explained the passes that she uses and the paperwork involved in getting them. I thanked her for the information and pointed out a seat that was empty behind her, that she could take. She had missed that while talking to me. She smiled and thanked me.
How often do we get a chance to receive kindness from strangers today?
We have a wealth of information floating around in the air as the Internet. We don’t have to ask out loud a majority of our questions. This is efficient no doubt, and hugely empowering but has it also made us close our eyes and ears?
As cities grow, we live in a pool of anonymity — an anonymity that we wear as a shield for our safety. Can we find an intersection in this anonymous space to still touch a fellow human without fear?
Asking and receiving a small kindness from an anonymous person comes with tremendous beauty. I found it by turning off my phone for an hour in my commute, what will you find today?
