Try a little kindness

Simple acts of kindness can have a big payoff.

The story of a South Korean businessman who has decided to donate $100,000 to KU Med in Kansas City is a reminder to all of us that small acts of kindness can make a big difference in people’s lives.

In 1956, Hak Soon Chang, was a long way from home. He was a civil engineer for the Korean government and was in Kansas City receiving flood-control training from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. When he was stricken with tuberculosis, he landed at the KU hospital, where he was a patient for about a year.

The kindness of nurses and doctors who cared for him is a memory that is still vivid 46 years later and prompted Hak Soon Chang to contact KU Med recently about a $100,000 donation.

The wonderful part of this story isn’t the money — although in the current financial crunch, the donation will be more than welcome. It’s the fact that caring people working at the Kansas City hospital provided such memorable attention to an ailing man. At the time, they surely were just doing what came naturally, to allay his fears and make him more comfortable. It probably was pretty much all in a day’s work for them. And yet, their kindness created a warm memory that reached around the world and lasted a lifetime.

Caring for people is what hospital employees do, of course, but their example is something all of us can emulate. Simple acts such as reading to a child, assisting an elderly person, reaching out to someone less fortunate can have a lasting impact on the people around us. We may not always know when we’re creating a warm memory for someone we touch, but we increase our chances whenever we take the time to do something that shows we care.

During the holidays many of us take some extra time to share a little kindness. It’s a good habit to cultivate all year round. In many cases it doesn’t take much, if any, more time to be pleasant and helpful than to be grouchy and selfish. Think how much nicer our city and our world would be if people just went through life trying to be a little kinder to one another.

So try a little kindness. You may never find a $100,000 check in the mail. You may never even know whose lives you touched. But the rewards in terms of peace and satisfaction are bound to be immense.