A Small Act Of Kindness

It was sophomore year and I’d just transferred to a new high school.

I didn't know anybody.

I had always spent a lot of time wandering around alone and daydreaming but high school didn’t feel like the right place for things like that.

I needed a crew.

I had a cheat code: skate shoes.

Back then you only wore skate shoes if you were a skateboarder, and there weren’t that many of us. The days of the X-Games, Street League, and now the Olympics were far, far away.

Sean and Brandon noticed my shoes and let me eat lunch with them. They were seniors and way cooler than I was but they tolerated me. I was super insecure at the time, and even around other skaters, I was intimidated. They carved out a little space for me but for some reason I never quite felt like I belonged.

One day I bumped into Mike in the quad. I’m not sure how we started talking. Must have been the skate shoe cheat code. Earlier in the week Sean was gleeking on me so I hocked a loogie on him. That didn’t go over so well and I was kind of homeless as far as lunch time went.

Mike said I should come eat lunch with his crew — they had a table in the back of the cafeteria and there was room for me. I didn’t know any of them and I was still incredibly shy and insecure but I said fuck it, it couldn’t be any more awkward than eating lunch alone.

The next day I peeked in. I made sure Mike was there first and then I went on to meet everyone else at the table. That table changed my life. These were my people. The next several years of my life were spent exclusively with people who interacted with our lunch table ecosystem. That table was safety, friendship, belonging, power.

That table helped me feel more like myself. It gave me a safe space to be me.

Mike, if you’re reading this, thank you. I’ll never forget the day you invited me to the table. That one small act of kindness created memories and lifelong friendships that are irreplaceable and forever woven into the fabric of who I am.

So many of us who are trying to make a difference are focused on scale. A bigger platform, more followers, more leverage, as if once we reach a certain threshold we’ll have some special power and our work will be “real.”

But we already have the power to positively affect others. One interaction, person to person, can shape someone’s day, give a boost to someone’s week, even change someone’s life forever. That’s about as real as it gets.