Here’s your reminder to be kind, friends. Kinder than necessary. You never know when your kindness could help change a life…
Somerset West, South Africa (05 October 2026) – It was a Wednesday morning. Good Things Guy reader Aimee was making her daily commute from home to the office. She was working up the courage to do something big. Something life-changing. And it came with all the jitters that major life decisions tend to bring.
“I was driving to work and parked at the petrol station around the corner from the office. A lot of nerves and anxiety felt for what I was about to do…” Aimee says, in writing to us.
Aimee had been working for the same employer for 13 years. That Wednesday, she was ready to resign.
She made a pit stop for coffee, climbed back into her car and fought through the nerves, hoping to find the courage she needed for her next stop…the office.
Then, a friendly face appeared…
“As I got ready to leave, a friendly gentleman who I recognised from being inside the garage shop/cafe approached me.”
In South Africa, we generally don’t roll down our windows for strangers. Even when it may be completely safe to do so. There are around 42 hijackings in South Africa every day, adding to the glum picture of crime in the country.
But there is also kindness. A lot of it.
This time, it was kindness knocking on the window.
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Aimee went on to thank him and tell him how she had been working up the courage to resign. She was overwhelmed, and his words of kindness had arrived at exactly the right time. Almost as if their little ‘meet cute’ was destiny. Perhaps even a sign that she was on the right track.
“I thanked him and told him that it was exactly what I needed to hear, because I was on my way to hand in my resignation to my employer after almost 13 years, something I never imagined doing and was super overwhelmed about.” Aimee says. “Told him I needed that confidence boost because I loved my previous company, but just needed a change. Pretty sure he said that one line of ‘a change is as good as a holiday’. I called our meeting a ‘meet cute.’”
The truth is, our distrust – or perhaps our fears, worries, reservations and concerns – often keeps us from interacting with strangers. Sometimes, though, the most incredible things happen when we open ourselves up to these little moments.
The universe gives you a wink and says, ‘You’ve got this!’
“I rarely trust a stranger, but on that day I chose to listen and was rewarded!”
Aimee says she lost the kind stranger’s business card, but knows that he is a motivational speaker and also helps people hang art in their homes.
That Wednesday, he decided to stop and compliment a stranger. Probably without knowing just how much of an impact his kind gesture would have.
Here’s your reminder to be kind, friends. Kinder than necessary. You never know when your kindness could help change a life.
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