Stranger Love

I’ve got a confession to make.  I’m a voyeur.  Of kindness.  A kindness voyeur.  I’ve been a huge fan of the work featured over on Patience Salgado’s blog for some time now.  I’ve read all about kindness missions and guerilla goodness. I’ve probably even re-tweeted some of the awesome-ness, but I’ve always just looked, until now . . .

This week I couldn’t stop thinking about all the joy and sorrow, celebration and regret, success and failure we all carry around all the time.  Hopefully there are moments in our lives when we have people to share all these with, but what of those moments that we are truly alone, in every sense of the word?

How often in those moments is it a smile from a stranger or simple compliment on the color of that particular sweater you’re wearing that makes you feel connected again?  Even if only for a second.

I love the idea of leaving random notes of encouragement that might hit someone at just that right moment, so this afternoon I took a walk around the campus where I work, armed with sticky notes.  I left one that said “you’ve got this” on a book in the stacks and imagined a student stressed about a research paper due tomorrow finding it.   I imagined a student who had just scheduled her first counseling appointment, retreating to the bathroom down the hall to catch her breath and finding the words “you are brave” stuck to the back of the stall door.

Truth is, I’ll never know who finds these notes.  What I do know is that posting them felt like saying thank you to every stranger who has ever done something kind for me in just that moment I needed it most.

*If you feel inspired to go on your own sticky-note kindness blitz, let me know in the comments below, and check out the post that sparked it all.