In this world we live in, almost everything comes with some strings attached, so it’s as hard for us to be kind as it is to accept kindness. But what happens when there is no catch? What happens when someone is just kind? I found out—and the results may surprise you.
Consciously doing nice things is harder than you would think. Contrary to popular belief, there are not always cars in the drive-thru or people in line behind you that you can just whip out an Abraham Lincoln for. Sometimes there is absolutely no one around at all. A majority of my day was spent trying to find an opportunity to buy someone coffee, so if you saw a girl lurking around the coffee shops of Columbia with a crazed look in her eye, that was me.
I decided to start small. Once I realized yelling, “You look fabulous today!” and “You are a superstar!” was only creeping everyone out, I decided to go a different route. Face-to-face interaction seemed far too intimidating. What if people refused me? What if they looked at me like I was crazy? The drive-thru seemed like the most harmless place to start. After cutting off a car in an attempt to get in front of them in the drive-thru, I figured the least I could do was pay for this little old man’s coffee.
My heart started pounding as I pulled up to the window and said, “I’m going to get the car behind me as well.” The cashier’s face beamed as he grabbed my change. I lingered in the turn lane, and caught the cashier mouthing, “She paid for your order,” and the little old man’s mouth turn up into a smile as he retrieved his coffee and donuts. When I looked at my receipt, I saw the cashier hadn’t charged me for my drink at all. He was paying it forward, too. Who would’ve thought my kindness would rub off?
Not going to lie, I was feeling pretty damn good about myself going to my next location. At Starbucks, I was worried when the girl who got in line behind me had a bad case of what most people would call “resting b—ch face (RBF).” I looked at the cashier, pointed to the girl beside me and gathered the courage to say, “I’m going to pay for her, too.” The look on the girl’s face was a mixture of shock and confusion as she looked around and sputtered out, “What? Are you serious? Oh my God, that is so nice of you! What? You don’t have to! Are you sure? Oh my God, I really needed this!” Her RBF morphed into the cheesiest smile. Like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes that day. The cashier said, “You are just the cutest. You’re going to have excellent karma.” I could get used to this whole being nice thing.
Since I couldn’t drink any more caffeine, I decided to give my large coffee to a girl who I saw setting up outside of The Gourmet Shop. My friend convinced me that, if she was working, she would love to get a free cup of coffee handed to her. I did not see a single flaw in this plan. I was coming straight off of what would be my best reaction of the day, after all. Let’s just say the waitress’ face was one that said, “Excuse me? What is in this cup? Is this roofied?” Although she thanked me, I could tell that coffee was going right in the trash. So, word to the wise, buying people coffee makes them happy. Thrusting a full cup of hot mystery liquid at them will not garner the same reaction.
A few more awesome Starbucks reactions later (someone literally called me his savior), I decided to go to Cupcake. My logic was this: if free coffee was getting positive reactions, a free cupcake would make someone actually cry. Turns out, no one was in the store, but I gave the cashier enough money to buy the next person their cupcake. When I explained to her what I had been doing all day, she said, “I love to see people doing this stuff for each other.” She also gave me a free cake pop, saying it was her turn to “pay it forward.”
Maybe my many trips through the drive-thru didn’t start some insane chain effect of people paying for the car in front of them. Maybe some people thought I was more than a little weird—I’m looking at you, Gourmet Shop girl—but the important thing is that it happened.
The most interesting thing I learned from this little experiment wasn’t that doing nice things makes you feel good. I knew that; I would hope it is pretty much common knowledge. I learned you don’t need to buy people coffee to make them happy. Just being genuinely kind can turn someone’s day around in an instant; it might just cause that person to send out a few more positive rays into the world too.
