Whenever I happen to be aboard a regional train or bus, I'll pick up The Metro paper that someone has left behind. (Unless I'm experiencing a random 'Germ Fear' day. Everyone has those days right?) Being a sensitive soul, ever attempting to avoid grim or distressing news, I'll always pluck straight for the page containing The Good Deed Feed. It never fails to bring a salty, feel-good tear to my eyes.

What is this Good Deed Feed? The Metro is a national daily paper (mid-week) distributed for public transport users. If someone has been the recipient of a good deed (often while using public transport), they can text a "thank you" for the Good Deed Feed box.

Simple acts of kindness are often the order of the day, like: 'Thank you to the kind lady on such and such a train who offered me a tissue when I was crying after a very bad day'.

There are two things at work here:

1) Folk that are soft-hearted and gracious enough to offer a stranger a helping hand in some form or other.

2) Folk that feel so much gratitude and appreciation towards the giver, that they make the effort and take the time to express their thanks.

When we are out and about, going about our daily business, we can't know what individuals in the flurry of faces we pass are going through. If we know what it is to experience a dire day, chances are, someone we share fleeting contact with are going through their dire day, today.

What is interesting, is that on the adjacent page is a Comments box and this is sometimes (not always but sometimes), used for comments more querulous in nature. (Although I'm pretty sure that even some of these are tongue in cheek in nature and succeed in providing a welcome chuckle for bleary eyed travelers on their mundane commute to work. For example: 'Lazy commuters. The poles on trains are for passengers to hold onto and not for lazy people to lean on!')

If you were to be placed in a figurative box today, which would it be? The Good Deed Feed, for either doing, or being a grateful recipient of, a good deed, or, the Complaints box?

Suzy

A Moodscope member.