I read an article today in the N.Y. Times. A man whose wife was killed in the recent massacre in El Paso is now left without any family at all. His wife was his only relative, and now she’s dead. He didn’t want to be the only one at his wife’s memorial service, so he asked the funeral home to invite anyone who wanted to come. They let a local paper know the story, and soon they had to move the venue to a bigger place because of the outpouring from the community. People who never knew her are sending floral arrangements and planning to attend. The support of the community has been overwhelming.
“He thought he would be burying his wife alone,” said Harrison Johnson, a funeral director at Perches who is handling the service. “This is about a community coming together to be there for him, to hold him up.”
This touched me, to the point of tears. The world can be such a harsh place sometimes, and it feels to me lately that we are so often divided by politics, or religion, or race, or whatever arbitrary boundary we choose to concoct. I see, on a daily basis how ugly humans can be to each other. It was nice to read about how kind we can be if we just put forth the most minimal effort.
It occurred to me that my upcoming journey is about connection. I’ve always seen it as connection to the earth, to the divine, to some spiritual goodness that I’ve seen glimpses of throughout my life. It hit me today that the main purpose of van life just may be kindness. It seems quite noble to set a goal to practice kindness everywhere I go. I realize this is a tall order because I’m not really good at it. I’m critical. I have very high expectations of people. Humanity disappoints so often. But I have vowed, starting today, to do one kind thing for another human being. If I do that every day, then I will do nearly 400 kind things in the course of a year. I will touch hundreds of lives directly and who knows how many will be touched indirectly. I know when I go to my local convenience store for coffee and someone holds the door for me, my day is brightened. My faith in the human race is restored, at least temporarily, and I myself am much more likely to be kind to the next person. So if I can be that door holder, or the person who brings flowers to a grieving spouse I don’t even know, or just let someone go ahead of me in a long line of traffic, perhaps that kindness will inspire the recipient to be kind themselves. Imagine the chain reaction of kind deeds spreading outward. It really wouldn’t take much, would cost nothing, and could change the world, or at least the part of the world I come in contact with.
So I’ve set that as my mission once I get on the road, and I think now is a good time to start practicing so I’ll be good at it once I get my van and start traveling. I’ll start today.
Perhaps you’d like to join me. Give it a shot. See if it doesn’t make you feel just a little bit better. See if you can brighten someone’s day, and see if maybe, just MAYBE, it doesn’t spread like wildfire.