Are Any Acts of Kindness Big?




Are there any truly big acts of kindness, or just small ones masquerading as greater things?  What makes a good deed big or little?  Are there any truly little acts of kindness, or is every good deed inherently big but subtle?


These are the things I have been thinking about this week.


On one hand, any act of kindness, if it is performed when the beneficiary is at a critical life junction, can have a big impact.  Life turns on small hinges.  A well-timed good turn can change everything about a person's life.


So does that mean that mean there are no small acts of service?  Because their influence at any given time can be big?


On the flip side, there are many works of kindness that pass almost unnoticed, even to the people receiving them.  There have been numerous occasions when someone has smiled, said hello, held an elevator, or slightly inconvenienced themselves for another's benefit only to have the act forgotten seconds later.  For every good work that changes a life, there may be many others that have a more limited influence. 



Does that mean that good deeds are almost always small?


Have you ever thought about what the cumulative effect of the many good things that other people have (or have not) done for you has been on your life?


Maybe the "small" act made the great ones possible.  But if so, maybe they aren't so small after all.


Or maybe it's all about perspective.  From one person's point of view a good deed may be small while for another it can be great.  But that would make goodness relative, coming and going with the tides of opinion, instead of a literal independent force like light or gravity. The perspective of the receiver certainly matters, but real kindness has a glow about it that is plainly discernible if a person with trained eyes takes the time to look for it.


Maybe the size of kindness has to do with the amount of effort exerted by the giver.  A act that requires more effort is bigger than one that does not.  But if the less difficult thing were actually more effective, wouldn't that make it bigger still because it accomplished more with less?



Or maybe it simply doesn't matter whether an act of kindness is great or small.


Maybe it just matters that you do it.

Maybe you just yearn to lift that person in your life as high as possible and give everything to make it happen. 

Maybe you sprint in the direction of the light and pray everything turns out alright.


Maybe you just see a need and fill it.


Maybe you do the best you can and stretch out to them until your arms ache.


Maybe when you do it this way you don't notice how your service measures up.


Because maybe the happiness that dawns in their hearts when you leap forward, holding nothing back, is the biggest deal of all. 


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Picture attributions:  Hernan Pinera, "Futbol" https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode Sylke Rohriach, "Young Male Humpback Whale-Megaptera novaeangliae" https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode Josey, "tiny Crane" https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode

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