It’s not that hard. We can get all romantic, sentimental and spiritual now, run through all of the complicated notions and reasons. We can try to find the root of kindness, explain it, find its evolutionary benefits and reason you into doing a random act of kindness in your day. We could try and talk you into starting a ripple but there is no need. It’s very simple, one of the simplest and most intuitive things in the world. You’re wired to do this – help – wherever and wherever you can make the situation at least a tiny bit better and more bearable than you found it. You have no idea how much something you see as a small intervention can mean to another, not necessarily physical benefit, final solution or anything directly regarding that current problem but by giving them hope.

Showing some kindness and common decency is so damn simple that you can’t even imagine it and hard because all of the hang-ups, shames, reluctances you’ve layered on top of this action by yourself or by societal means. But the gist of it is: if you see a problem and are in position to respond – respond. Fix it for crying out loud. Just make it a tiny bit better. Be a force creating order out of chaos and bring relief and a solution, no matter how temporary it may be. Have you got anything better to do in this life than fix stuff? Serve. Serve a purpose, a goal (which is not only self-serving), a person, a mission, an ideal, a direction. If you see someone struggling jump in, help that old man cross a busy intersection, save that cricket that got stuck in a jar, throw a beached fish back into the ocean, help that lady up the stairs, hold the door open for a mom with a baby stroller and bags in her hand, say hello to your waiter, ask them how they are doing – and really mean it, get up half an hour early to make breakfast for everyone if someone has a hard day ahead, give that extra brownie you got to the man starving outside the department store…

It is not that hard to do some good. You may not instigate world peace from your living room but you can help individual suffering where you encounter it, and to that individual that is the world you just saved, their world. Even if you can’t relieve all of their suffering you restored hope and this is priceless. Show some kindness.