Jan 18, 2023 2 min read This Avocado Tree

Small Kind Gestures

Small Kind Gestures is all it takes!

I am pretty intuitive, but sometimes you really don’t know what other people are going through behind the scenes. I can often tell when there is something going on but, this is not always the case. A listening ear is all that might be needed. Here’s an encounter I had recently.

After work one day, I was in the line to pay for groceries. When it was my turn, the cashier said hello and asked how was my day, just like she did for the 2 customers that were ahead of me. I told her I was great and asked the same question. I wasn’t prepared for the conversation over the next 3 minutes.

I learnt that she is a foreign student. She had been having a difficult time with her studies, and there was chaos happening with her roommates. She also mentioned that there was an incident with one of her roommates at midnight the night before. She sounded so frustrated. I could tell that she was struggling to keep a smile on her face and maintain a happy attitude. I asked her if she came directly to her part time job after school and she said yes. I then asked her if she was exhausted to which also answered yes. By this time she became much calmer. As she bagged my groceries, I told her (in a nutshell) that she should just stay focused on her goals, and that her situation will come to an end soon enough. I realized at that moment that all she needed to do was vent, and have a listening ear. That small gesture cost me nothing.

To be honest, I have no idea why she chose to talk to me. Maybe because I smiled and gave her eye contact when we exchanged pleasantries at the beginning of the conversation…who really knows! All I know, is that it felt really good to leave her smiling, and in a good mood to finish her shift. I chalked it up to be divine intervention. I was in the right place, at the right time, and chose to stop and care about another person. Besides, I had been there before so I understood how she was feeling.