How do you choose to behave when no one is looking?
Around this time of year, the leaves that once hung from the trees in our yard find their way to the ground. It generally takes two or three days to rake up the leaves, bag them, and bring them to the town compost site. Since the compost site is only open on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I try to time the raking just right so I can get the bags of leaves to the compost rather than have them sit in the yard or in the garage.
Some of my neighbors use a leaf blower to blow their leaves into a large pile in a corner of their yard, chop them up with their lawnmower, and let them decay. But I prefer not to do that. Others hire a crew to come and rake up the leaves. But I prefer not to do that either. I figure the exercise is good, and as long as I’m capable and can find the time, I’ll continue raking.
A few years ago, when the woman I’d eat bees for and I were away, we let a young couple we know stay at our house for a few days around this time of year. They were looking to get away from their apartment for a few days and our empty house was an affordable option.
When we drove up to the house and opened the garage door, we noticed that the garage was packed with several dozen filled paper leaf bags. The young couple had taken it on themselves to rake up most of the leaves in our yard. All I needed to do was to drive the bags to the town compost site.
The young couple never said a word but instead left the raked leaves as a surprise thank you for us. We didn’t expect anything from them in exchange for staying in the house. Nevertheless, they chose to make this expression of kindness. We were touched.
A few years ago when I shared a similar story of strangers or friends engaging in acts of kindness and asked readers to send me stories of their own, I received an email from a reader in Columbus, Ohio, urging me not to read too much into it if I didn’t receive a lot of responses.
“Please do not think there are not nice people doing kind things out there,” he wrote. “They might just not want to be recognized for it.”
The reader’s point made sense. Sometimes we simply do the right thing when no one is looking because we believe it’s the right thing to do. Nevertheless, many of you continue to share your stories with me of kindnesses given or received. And I will continue to share those stories not because you expect the recognition, but because it might continue to provide encouragement to others to do kind things when given the opportunity.
So tell me the small or not so small things you’ve done for others or others have done for you when no one is looking. Tell me who and where you are and send your stories to me at jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. If it’s OK with you, I may share some of your stories in the weeks ahead.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.
(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.