Sometimes we all need a reminder of all the great things that take place everyday in every corner of the world.
We don't always hear about people's selfless gestures, but every so often someone shares a story of a random act of kindness that renews our faith in humanity. These also prove that despite all the negative events happening in the world, there is still plenty of good.
Here are 10 stories from Reddit and Quora that highlight the random acts of kindness performed by people for complete strangers:
1. The Christmas surprise
"My husband is in the navy, and due to deployment missed the birth of our son and would be missing his first Christmas. We were devastated by this. It was Thanksgiving week, and my husband had duty, he had to spend the night on the boat. We had very little money, but I really wanted to decorate the house for Christmas a little and get a tiny tree, I maybe had $40 for both tree and decorations. So I go to a certain orange home improvement chain store and unfortunately they started selling their real trees black Friday, and my husband would be gone by then. I found a worker, explained my situation and asked if they could possibly sell me one earlier. The lady talks to her manager for a minute, then leads me outside to the locked tree area. I ask her which ones were the cheapest, then she told me her manager said to let me have any tree I wanted for FREE!
Because of their kindness I was able to give my husband an amazing first Christmas with our firstborn. And the look on his face when he walked in and saw everything decked out was absolutely priceless. I will never forget those kind people."
- j_platypus.
2. The lovely chap
"My friend Chris is an all round lovely chap. He was out for dinner with his then girlfriend (now wife) and got chatting to an older couple over dinner. They turned out to get on incredibly well, and were saying that when they were young they'd eat out in restaurants frequently, as Chris and his GF did at the time, but since retiring their pensions couldn't cover the expense as easily as they once could so now it was an extremely rare occurrence indeed.
On his way out Chris, who is by no means a rich guy at all, spoke to one of the waiters to pay off the couple's current bill plus left £50 for any deserts of drinks they could possibly want. He left a note thanking them for all their advice etc. then just walked out the restaurant without saying anything to them."
- Hanshen.
3. The selfless bus driver
"This really won't sound like much but it's the nicest thing I've ever seen a person do in my short 19 years of living.
My bus takes two different routes around my village and they go in opposite directions. An old lady who could barely walk got on the bus one day and the driver purposely drove to the other route that he wasn't supposed to take. He took her as close to her house as possible (she was a regular) and then helped her to cross the road. He then turned the bus around and continued onto the correct route that he should've been taking. Every single person on that bus was smiling that day."
- FindingAUsername.
4. The priceless act
"I worked at a shoe store. A mom was telling her son that she couldn't afford his shoes tonight, but she would have us hold them in hopes she could scrape up the money and come back and pay for them. A woman overheard her, and when the woman left the lady came up to me. "See those shoes on hold? I want to pay for them. Tell the lady when she comes back they're already paid for." I said, "are you sure? They're 70 dollars." (Basketball shoes) she said, "I don't care how much they are, put them on my ticket." And she left.
The woman came to buy the shoes for her son the next day, and her face when she found out a stranger paid for them was priceless."
- Currywursts.
5. The generous kid
"This little 4-5 Y.o. kid was asking for some money from his dad for a toy he saw while walking in the town square/market. His dad gave him the money and on his way to the vendor he saw a old man with a begging cup. He drooped the money in the old mans cup and went back to his dad.
It was me when i was a kid."
- Anonymous.
Keep reading for more stories that will melt your heart.
6. The woman who buys many turkeys
"This is just the first one that comes to mind...I went to Washington to visit my sister and brother in law for Thanksgiving. We had to stop by the store for some last minute purchases and my sister and I saw a woman that had two grocery carts full of turkeys. We overheard another person in the check out line asking her why she had so many turkeys. She replied with 'Every year I go the day before Thanksgiving and buy as many turkeys as possible and I go by all the homeless shelters/kitchens and bring them turkeys just in case they don't have enough to feed everyone.'"
- Miss_Sith.
7. Paying it forward
"Just after college my wife and I were planning our wedding. Both of us did not have good jobs and had lots of debt from college. We both were living at our parents' houses until we could get enough money for the wedding and an apartment. We had a hard time even paying for gas to drive the 30 minutes each way to see each other.
Then one day my mom found an envelope in her mailbox that had my wife and my names on it so she gave it to us. It didn't have a stamp or address. Someone had just dropped it in her mailbox. Inside was $300 cash. No note, name or anything. That $300 went a long way for us at the time.
Now that we are on our feet, when my wife and I know someone is in need we drop $300 cash in their mailbox in a plain envelope. We have done this 3 times so far and we love it each time!"
- Lucas Mund.
8. The anonymous kidney donor
"I can never tell her. She would have never agreed. And she would regret it forever if I told her now. She thinks it's someone who sold it to us. And that she was so lucky to have got a "donor" within 3 months of needing it.
The amazing feeling of having done this for my ma is something I can never explain to anyone. No one knows about this - except my wife!"
- Anonymous.
9. The best boss ever
"When my company was acquired for > $100m, the acquirer between signing and closing rescinded all the payments for employees other than the two co-founders.I refused to sign the closing papers, took 30% of my proceeds, and forced the acquirer to create a package of 'employee bonuses' which in fact weren't bonuses and were paid by me. The employees never knew. They thought this web leader 'took care of them'. In fact, in part because of these payments, only 1 person -- one -- left in the first 2 years.
The web leader was so angry about this, that while the deal went through (and has been very successful), they cut back my VP compensation at the Web Leader and paid me as a relatively low level employee and cancelled my bonus and all stock options. So this cost me another $2m or so. It's all good."
- Anonymous.
10. The Good Samaritan
"Few years back in (Austin, Tx) during the summer it was one of the hottest days recorded. I was driving down a highway and saw a homeless guy with nothing but shorts and a torn shirt on. He didn't have shoes or anything under his feet so I knew it had to hurt for him to be standing on the cement ground. I was about to leave for Houston but decided that I couldn't let him tear his feet up like that so I drove to a dollar store and bought some shoes and sandals, a bunch of shorts and shirts and a backpack and 3 gallon water jugs and a igloo cooler with wheels and packed it with ice, snacks, trail mix, anything I could fit in there. I drove back to where he was standing and parked my car off to the side of the road and gave him everything I got. As I walked up to him I could see he was tearing up. I got to hold a small conversation with him until I had to get back in my car to leave. Haven't seen him since, hopefully he's doing well."
- docholiday06.
What's the nicest thing you or someone you know has ever done for a stranger? Share your stories in the comments!
[h/t: Pref.com]