We’ve hopefully all had experiences with people who did really nice things for us, not only close family and friends but also complete strangers. Today I talk about this wonder-inspiring phenomenon and share a couple of my own stories of lovely strangers who have helped me out.
Listen on Podbean:
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A few resources:
Link here to the site I mention, Daily Good.
Music: Jens East — Daybreak (ft. Henk) www.soundcloud.com/jenseast
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution V4.0
Cover image of supermarket from Pixabay (artist: TungArt7, https://pixabay.com/illustrations/people-crowd-motion-hall-shopping-8760361)
Transcription (remember, this is a direct transcription of what I said and is not actually how I write!):
Welcome to 9 Minutes of Wonder. I’m Betsy Hedberg. I hope this podcast will help you rekindle your sense of wonder for this awe-inspiring world. If you like what you hear in the next few minutes, please subscribe and share.
Hi everyone, I want to tell you a story of something that happened to me recently at the supermarket, just a few blocks. It’s like two blocks from my apartment. I was up there getting a lot of groceries. I hate going grocery shopping, so I usually buy too much and then I stuff it all into one of those carts that you can take home. So I did that and I had, you know, toilet paper and some things that were big, but I’ve done this a lot.
So I was all done getting ready to go, filling up my take-home shopping cart, and this woman came up to me and she asked if she could help me. And I said, “Oh no thanks, I just live really close.”
And she said, “Oh, well, I have a car and I’d like to take you home. You have too many groceries.”
And I said, “Oh thank you, that’s very, very kind. I do this frequently and I could just walk, it’s just two blocks away.”
And she insisted a little bit more and then I finally was able to say, “Oh no, thank you, really it’s not, not necessary, but I really appreciate the offer.” And then she went on her way.
So I was walking home with my cart and all my groceries and some extra bags and the toilet paper under one arm. And I’m about halfway — again it’s two blocks away — I’m about halfway back to my building and somebody pulls up in a car next to me, and it’s this woman. And she had seen me leave, and she followed me and absolutely insisted that I put all my groceries in the car and get in the car and she would take me home.
Now I don’t usually take rides with strangers, but this woman was just very non-threatening. And I thought, okay, this is nice. And of course now I will say yes.
But I couldn’t put the cart in the car. So I put my groceries in the car and the toilet paper and everything, and I walked home with the cart leading her in her car to my apartment building.
But before I went inside, I of course said, “Thank you, this is just so very kind.” And she looked at me and she said, “I just like to give back when I see that people need something, and I feel guided by God.” And I thought, well, this is rare, right?
This kind of experience is pretty rare, but it may be that we’ve all had experiences kind of like this. If we think about it, we’re so used to hearing about all the terrible people in the world and all the bad things they do. So these kinds of stories, when they happen to other people, when they happen to us, of course, are good reminders that not everybody sucks.
There’s a name for this. In this podcast, I frequently mentioned Dacher Keltner’s book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life. In his book, he talks about his research, and he calls this type of wonder-inspiring situation “moral beauty”.
He says that based on his research, other people are most likely to lead us to an experience of awe. In other words, of all the types of experiences that we can have in nature or with a wonderful piece of music or some religious experience, it’s most likely to actually be from observing or having an interaction with another person. So for example, acts of bravery, like saving someone’s life, of course, can be very awe-inspiring. People who overcome huge obstacles, like recovering from a terrible injury, for example. And people who are rare talents, like I’m thinking about big-wave surfers, and the waves themselves bring me awe, but then anybody who can go surfing on them is maybe crazy, but also very awe-inspiring.
But we can also be very inspired, right, by people in our personal lives who aren’t necessarily doing anything perceived as grand. People who, like this woman at the supermarket, are particularly kind or generous with their time or with their love. And it could be a family member, or it could be a stranger, or it could be somebody like the wonderful woman in my community who is organizing a monthly open-mic night where people come together in a completely uncompetitive way to share songs, poems, stories, or anything else that inspires them with a group of really welcoming people.
Anybody who can bring people together in that way I find has moral beauty and inspires my wonder. And you’ve probably had experiences with people like this as well.
In the book Awe, he gives the example of a man named Steven who was in prison, in solitary confinement, but there was a librarian at the prison who would lend him books. And he read a lot of Shakespeare and, of course, other books while he was in prison. And he never forgot this librarian who filled him up with knowledge and with excitement about reading and helped him get his life back on track. And then when he got released from prison, he was at a halfway house, and he met a guy who helped him get off drugs and got him a job clearing brush, and he regards that person with reverence. And then later, there was a teacher of Shakespeare at his community college that he ended up going to, and that person was also inspiring.
So people can be inspiring who come into our lives at times when we need them, or just random times.
Dacher Keltner writes, “Witnessing acts of moral beauty prompts us more generally to be ready to share and lend a helping hand.” So other people’s kind or inspiring actions make us more generous and helpful toward other people, and research backs this up. I find that even if it’s not exactly awe-inspiring or doesn’t fill me with a great sense of wonder, an interaction, or multiple interactions during my day, but even just one, can really reframe a bad mood or can make me feel more like doing something nice for other people, even just somebody who smiles at me at the grocery store or anywhere.
You can find a lot of stories like this on websites like the Daily Good. I’ll share the link. And I think that it’s really nice to think about how a sense of wonder can come to us on a regular day, even a boring day, and also when we look back and think about experiences we’ve had with people in the past.
I’ll give you one more quick story that I love and that I often think about when I feel like people maybe aren’t really so nice. Then I remember the people in my circle, in my community, who are nice. And then I think about the umbrella woman.
When I was in college, I was having a crappy day. Something had gone wrong, I don’t quite remember what. And then I went to my psychology class, and it was raining really hard that day. I went into the ladies’ room before class, and then I went in class and realized I had left my umbrella in the ladies’ room. And I went back in to find my umbrella because I knew I would really need it. And of course, it was a new umbrella. And of course, the umbrella was no longer there. It was gone.
So I walked back to my dorm, and it was maybe it was a pretty decent-length walk, like a 20-minute walk in the cold rain. And I was in such a bad mood. I had, you know, just bought the umbrella. And anyway, I’m walking along getting more and more wet and more and more angry. And a woman, I don’t know, she was probably 60 years old, walks toward me and she handed me her umbrella, and I was startled.
I said, “Oh, you need this umbrella.” She said, “No, no, no, please, you must take the umbrella.” And she walks away.
That’s all. It was so lovely. I’ll never forget it, and that was decades ago.
So think about stories like that, that you’ve had and how they might fill you with wonder, or if not wonder, just like a really good feeling, right? Again, I find it helpful to think about this topic amidst all the morally repulsive people we hear about in the news, if we pay attention. Those people are not the majority. They just have the biggest platform and draw the most attention. So I’ll leave it at that. You know what I’m talking about.
But I hope you can find some wonder in the people around you or people you can learn about today.