The Good Chain

Running a dorm has taught me that you don’t need anything more than just the smallest amount of goodwill to truly leave a mark. Sometimes some of my tenants would come to me saying they weren't able to come up with the payment for the month, feeling shy or guilty having to constantly approach their parents about paying for the dorm every single month. Upon hearing this I’d start thinking of their parents as well. What must it be like for their parents, paying for their child’s living expenses again and again, while perhaps carrying many of their own burdens.

Because of this, during some of these times, I would then find myself giving them a slight discount or allowing payment extensions even without having to be asked. It wasn’t a necessary thing for me to do but as a business owner I understood that income was crucial. However, to me offering them a little hand and making their lives easier felt more significant than the monetary aspect of it all; seeing how much they appreciated the understanding. This was to make them feel heard instead of judged.

Originally I simply wanted to make it easier for my tenants during months when things got tight. I never would have guessed what my actions would actually set in motion, a “good chain” effect in the truest sense of the term. Slowly but surely, I realized that kindness doesn’t solely end with you; it can ripple outwards like a stone tossed into a pond.

What’s really significant to me is how the way I perceive people has changed. Now whenever an opportunity arises to offer someone a little bit more time, a small discount, a listening ear or a bit more patience, I try not to pass it up.

All this has enriched my life in a way that taught me kindness doesn’t always have to involve great deeds. At times, kindness is simply seeing someone struggling to keep their head afloat and choosing to throw a buoy to make them float that little easier. I’ll probably never know if my tenants who received assistance pass it on but perhaps that is what’s beautiful about goodness. We may not be privy to where our acts of goodness lead to but trust one’s belief that it goes on and can lead us much further than we anticipated.

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