Most of the kindness I have witnessed in the last several years has had no audience at all. I think that's actually the most important thing I could tell you about it.
There is a version of generosity that happens in front of people — a public gesture, a visible donation, an act performed at least partly because it will be seen. I don't think there's anything wrong with that version. Visible generosity still moves real resources, and it can genuinely inspire other people to act. But it is not the version that has changed how I think about human beings.
The version that changed me is quieter, and I have seen it constantly, almost always by accident. A stranger giving up a seat without being asked and without looking around afterward to see if anyone noticed. Someone in a community we serve sharing part of their own small portion with someone who had even less, when there was no possible benefit to them in doing so and no one keeping count. A man who had very little offering directions, unprompted, to someone clearly lost, then continuing on without waiting to be thanked.
None of this makes the news. None of it gets photographed. I think there's a reasonable argument that most of the kindness that actually happens in the world is invisible by its nature — that the moment it becomes visible, some small percentage of its motivation shifts toward being seen, and it becomes a slightly different thing.
I bring this up because I think it's easy, especially now, to conclude that people are mostly self-interested, mostly indifferent, mostly looking out for themselves first. I understand why that conclusion is tempting. The visible evidence often points that way. But the visible evidence is a biased sample — it only captures the kindness that happened to be witnessed, which is a small and unrepresentative fraction of all the kindness that actually occurs.
I have started keeping a kind of private ledger, not written down anywhere, just in memory — small acts I happened to see that no one else seemed to notice. It is longer than I expected when I started paying attention. I think most people's would be, if they looked.
From the archive
Why Success Without Service Feels Empty