The positive ripple effect you can make in five minutes or less

A few weeks ago, someone rang the doorbell at my house in Houston at 9 p.m. on a Friday. 

I was out of town for a speaking event three time zones away, but I knew someone was at our door because I got a notification on my phone. 

I knew that my husband, Spiros, was home. It’s not unusual for his friends to come by when I’m gone, especially on a Friday night, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.

A moment later, I got another notification. Then another. 

Spiros wasn’t answering the door, and whoever was out there kept ringing the bell. 

I tried calling Spiros. Our doorbell ring is pretty faint (on purpose), so I assumed he was upstairs and couldn’t hear it. No answer. I knew Spiros had had a long day, so I figured he’d fallen asleep.

Another notification. Whoever was out there wasn’t leaving.

Eventually, I pulled up the camera feed on my phone to see who it was. I could see a middle-aged couple I didn’t recognize, and I heard them talking to each other, saying something like, “It looks like they’re home . . . Should we try again and see . . .” and then they started walking away. 

I decided to try to talk to them through my app to see what was up. 

I said something like, “Hi! Can I help you?”

Luckily, they weren’t freaked out by a disembodied voice coming from our doorbell, and they turned back toward our house and started talking to me. 

They told me they live a few houses down, and they’d been out for a walk when they noticed a ton of water pooling into the street from our house. They were pretty sure that something was flooding because they’d had a similar issue and recognized the signs. They thought we might have forgotten to turn off the spigot when filling our pool and wanted to make sure we knew.

“Oh my goodness,” I said. “Thank you so much!” I asked them to describe what was happening so that I could tell Spiros. They offered to go in our backyard and see if they could find the source of the flooding, but I told them Spiros would be able to handle it and that it would be okay. I thanked them profusely. 

After they left, I was able to get in touch with Spiros (who had, in fact, fallen asleep). As it turns out, the issue wasn’t our pool, it was our sprinklers. If those kind strangers hadn’t let us know about the water pooling in front of our house, our backyard and garage might’ve been flooded by morning. Spiros was able to turn everything off and get it all fixed the next day.

Even though Spiros quickly took care of the problem and everything ended up fine, I couldn’t stop thinking about those strangers and their powerful act of kindness.

They were just out for a walk when they noticed something that didn’t look right. They could have said, “That looks bad,” and kept walking, and I wouldn’t have blamed them. It's not their house. They don't know us. No one would have known or even blamed them if they’d just kept walking. But they chose to stop and help anyway. 

And they didn't just ring the doorbell one time and give up when we didn’t answer. They stayed and kept trying to get our attention. And then, when I finally spoke to them, they offered to go into our backyard to check things out and help even further. 

I was so taken aback by the amount of kindness they were willing to extend to total strangers, especially because they went out of their way to do something they didn’t have to do.

Isn’t it so special when you interact with people who operate in this way?

My mom is a great example of this. She instilled in me and my sister from a young age that when we see an opportunity to help, we should take it.

One thing that really stands out to me from my childhood is what we did every time we went to the grocery store. After we loaded everything into our car, my mom would always make sure that we put our shopping cart back where it belonged instead of leaving it randomly in the parking lot. If we encountered other carts that people had abandoned along the way, we’d bring those back, too. Occasionally there would be a grocery store employee who would see us doing this, and the same thing would happen every time: They would be so thankful for our act of kindness. That’s something that has stuck with me my whole life, and I still do it today, thanks to my mom. 

What this experience with these two strangers made me think about is how I can go out of my way to help people even more. I don’t think it’s as simple as choosing to be kind, though; I think there are a few steps to it.

First, I think if you want to be someone who goes out of their way to be kind to others, you have to be present in your daily life. Recognizing when someone needs help requires an awareness of what’s going on around you. The couple on the walk only noticed the water because they were present. My mom only noticed the shopping carts because her mind wasn’t somewhere else. 

After that, I think it requires empathy. In the case of the couple who noticed our leak, they empathized with what it might feel like to have water pooling in front of your house and not know. Something similar had happened to them, so they knew the stress it could cause. For my mom, putting the carts back was about respect and kindness: We lived in Florida, and gathering up stray carts is hot work. Even though it’s part of someone’s job, she didn’t want to burden them unnecessarily.

After presence and empathy, there’s a third step: acting on what you notice and feel. This is the part where I think most people—including me—get stuck.

Why do we choose not to help when we see a way to make a difference?

I think it could be a few things. . . .

Read the rest on my blog! 🧡