hen you think about it, there isn't such a thing as a good deed that is totally unselfish.Why?
Because I believe that, when we do something kind for someone else, we're left with a wonderful feeling of fulfillment--which means that each good deed we do comes with a sort of instant reward.
Therefore, it can't be totally unselfish!
However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing--in fact, I don't really see anything bad about it. It's just a fact of life.
Many times, we do something that's both very positive and very simple such as smiling at somebody...
...and, while it feels good to us, we have no idea how SUPER good it felt to one or more of the individuals receiving such a smile!
When I was growing up, I had several volumes of Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories
, and loved reading them over and over.One story that really impressed me was about this man whose wife and daughter had died during the year, and what was coming up would be his very first Christmas without them.
His friends were naturally concerned about him, as he seemed to have lost interest in living.
To say that he was well-off financially would have been an understatement. He might not have been (had this story taken place here in the 21st Century) right up there with Bill Gates, but he was a lot closer in bank account to Bill Gates than he was to that of a family living on the wrong side of the tracks.
However, no amount of money he had in the bank, property, investments, etc. could fill those holes left in his broken heart that were shaped like his wife and daughter.
Somehow--even as miserable as he felt--his friends had succeeded at talking him into going to a special benefit concert to help make the lives of some of the less fortunate (financially) in his community better.
He and his friends had front-row seats to where they were able to see the performers up-close-and-personal.
At any other time, he would have really enjoyed this, but, that night, he just wanted this to be over so that he could return home and cry himself to sleep.
In the state of mind that he was in, he might have ended up doing much more than crying himself to sleep, as he had gotten to the place where he had decided that life really wasn't worth living.
Then, the next bunch of performers came on: a choir made up of several of the children whom this benefit would be helping.
Suddenly, he saw her--a little girl who reminded him so much of the daughter he had lost earlier that year.
He, likely, looked more than a little sad, and this child instinctively knew that he needed a smile, so she looked right at him and gave him one of her best.
He just melted at that point and smiled right back at her.
Throughout the rest of the time the choir was performing, the two were looking at each other and smiling.
After that, the man began to ask the people in charge of the benefit a few questions. He left the benefit a much happier man with a new spark of hope and purpose in his heart.
Meanwhile, special things began to happen to the little girl. Her school supplies--which also included her school lunch and milk break--were getting paid for, and she always had new clothes to wear at the beginning of each school year.
Somehow, she never made the connection between this and the man in the audience when she was singing.
However, she became more and more confident that she could do things that had never happened in her family before such as becoming the first one of them to graduate from high school.
She even began to see college as part of her future, so she studied very hard and applied for scholarships at many colleges and universities.
Then the evening of her high school graduation arrived.
After the ceremony, a man who looked familiar for some reason but not anybody whom she knew walked towards her and her family.
He revealed that he had been her secret pal for many years and why this was so:
Because she had smiled at him and had lifted his spirits during a very sad time in his life!!!
The next thing he told her that any part of her college education that wasn't covered by scholarships was on him!!!
If I remember correctly, the name of the story I read was either called The Worth Of A Smile or The Value Of A Smile.
Now, don't expect to go down the street grinning at everybody and watching your bank account magically fill up with money, because it generally doesn't happen that way.
That wasn't the lesson Uncle Arthur was trying to teach when he told that story--at least, I don't believe so.
What I believe that he was trying to teach was that something as simple as a friendly smile had the potential to make a very positive difference in even the most troubled of lives.
There are times when the seeds of kindness you sow end up returning to you at a time when you can use them the most.
I dare you not to shed at least one tear when watching this very moving two-part episode of The Jeffersons...
