In a recent NPR piece, Laurel Dalrymple gathers reader stories about small moments of kindness between strangers. The answer to the question in her headline is a hopeful one: kindness is alive and well.
Dalrymple begins with the research behind the idea. NPR’s original 2023 story traced psychologist Gillian Sandstrom‘s work back to her time as a lonely graduate student in Toronto, where she exchanged a daily wave and hello with a hot dog vendor she passed on campus. She never once bought a hot dog. That brief exchange lifted her spirits enough that she began studying the power of what she calls “weak ties.” Her research confirmed what many people already sense. Even casual encounters can improve mood, ease isolation and strengthen a sense of community.
The idea spread. Kristin Jenkins, a global health professor at Cornerstone University in Michigan, told NPR the story had prompted her to assign students the task of engaging with strangers. They liked it so much they wanted to keep going. A mechanic struck up a warm conversation about nursing school. A hospital worker felt steadier during a hard shift, noting that using someone’s name or listening a few minutes longer can matter a great deal.
Then Dalrymple turns the page over to readers. A woman in California wrote about her mother, who lost a year of school to polio and has lived with a twisted spine and chronic pain ever since. For two decades she and her dogs have visited nursing homes and hospitals each week, bringing handwritten cards and goody bags to people who rarely get visitors. A reader in Kenya asked a man in a bakery line about the acronym on his T-shirt, and the two talked for 15 minutes and left smiling. Another reader extends the habit beyond people, greeting a hawk as “brother” and telling a flower it is beautiful.
Some of the longer letters land harder. Michelle Sarnosky of Missouri works registration desks at corporate events. Late one day a woman came to her counter in tears after a difficult training session. Sarnosky handed her a pack of tissues and listened while she talked about feeling invisible as an older woman in a male-dominated tech setting. By the end, the heaviness had lifted and Sarnosky had earned a smile. She writes that the exchange gave her something too, a sense of being exactly where she was meant to be.
Cordelia Biddle of Pennsylvania describes the day after her older brother died unexpectedly. She went with her father to a UPS counter in Philadelphia, where the woman working there made small talk. Biddle answered honestly. The woman gasped, came around the counter and hugged them both. She did not know them at all, but she recognized the weight of what they were carrying.
Anita Finley Derr found that walking a new puppy opened up a closed-off Florida town, and calls the whole thing a two-sided gift. Donald Pederson of Maryland puts it plainest of all: pay attention and listen, and everybody has a story to tell.
The thread running through Dalrymple’s collection is that kindness rarely needs to be big to count. A pack of tissues, a hug from someone at a counter, a question about a T-shirt. These are small acts, and they stay with people far longer than anyone expects.
Acknowledgement: This summary was generated using AI writing tools as part of my AI exploration process. For more information, check out the original article listed below.