This past week, my husband and I were watching a show where people were discussing the worst thing they’ve ever done. This led to he and I having a completely opposite discussion when he turned to me and asked, “What’s the best thing you’ve ever done?”
The question threw me for a loop, because looking back, there were a lot of things I could think of. Best thing I ever did for myself? For someone else? I’m no saint, but I like to think I’ll choose kindness over another option. I had a girl in high school tell me she didn’t like me because no matter how mean she was, I was still nice to her. It never occurred to me to be mean back, it’s just not in my nature.
We narrowed it down to the best thing we’ve done for someone else, in a general sense, and Kyle had an answer right away.
For whatever reason, Kyle gives off grandson-energy. When we are out an about, he is approached by women all the time for help when they can’t figure out a function on their phone, or to get something they can’t reach. It’s not because he’s tall, because we’re about the same height, but they still ask him to get something off of the top shelf. He’s very approachable to women over 50, which isn’t a bad thing, and he said he genuinely likes that they feel safe approaching him for help with something. Even though it’s always a small act of kindness, he feels that as a whole it’s one of the best things that he could do to just provide those small tasks and be kind to strangers.
On the opposite end, my answer was a bit larger. I try to do kind things all the time, but one of the best things I did was befriend someone in high school. She was one of my best friends for years, and though we’ve drifted apart, I’m proud of the influence I had on her.
She had gone to a few different schools before ours, and she made friends with some bad influences over the years as she did so in an effort to fit in. When I befriended her in the theater program, she and I hit it off right away. Between theater, reading, writing, and a myriad of other things, we had a ton of common interests, and we were both only children. We were fast friends, and we spent a majority of our free time together. Even if there was a group outing, I was always there sticking to her side.
And, for whatever reason, my goody-two-shoes nature kept people from making bad decisions around me. I never saw my fellow students use drugs or drink, even if I knew full-well that they enjoyed those things. They were always under the impression I would tell someone and they’d get in trouble. I never did that, but they assumed I would, so they just avoided doing anything bad around me. I suppose that made me a good influence, looking back, even if it was inadvertently.
After being friends with this girl for a few months, her mom pulled me aside and thanked me for being a good influence on her. I was kind of surprised, because I didn’t do anything different than I did with anyone else. But, looking back, by being her friend, I made a positive impact on her. And she made a positive impact on me, we were best friends. There was no one else I could play the board game ‘Be a Broadway Star’ with, or anyone else that had the same weird sleep schedule or listened to the same variety of music. I loved having that kind of connection with someone.
And, of course, Kyle knew all of this. He and I were friends back then, he knew her well. But I remembered a paper I wrote in college about the youth center she and I volunteered at as teenagers and how it helped kids. I had interviewed my old ‘boss’ (we were all teen volunteers, and he was one year older than me, boss is a very loose term) for said paper, and he said that while we had some kids in our programs that made bad decisions, we got to those kids in time to stop them from going further down that bad road. It was a youth theater, so we had kids of all ages and all kinds of backgrounds, and I know for some of them, it was the best part of their day. They looked up to us as older teen role models, and we gave them a safe place for expression and a place where they could sing as loud as they wanted without judgement.
That was how I felt about my friend. I’m sure she still made bad decisions in our high school years, but I felt like I had gotten to her in time to steer her away from that direction. And now, she still works with kids, at the Ronald McDonald House Charities, making a positive impact on others.
Of course, this is all with a decade of hindsight. Back then, I didn’t think I was doing something for someone else. I was just being someone’s friend. But sometimes being a friend is the best thing you can do for a person, and it can make a world of difference.
I encourage you all to think about the best thing you’ve ever done, and strive to do that again.