Small Gesture, Great Impact.
Good night fellas. It’s been a while, welcome back to my writing! (even though I am not sure if you’ve been following my writing but still, thanks for reading, I really appreciate it *insert a wink wink emoji*). Tonight, yes cus it’s 11:26PM here, I am going to tell you about occurrences that have been happening in my life these past 2 months of being a, uhm, let’s say a job-seeker (it’s a nicer way to say that someone who doesn’t have anything to do apart from seeking a full-time opportunity with a minimum qualification of being capable parting the sea, OOPS🌚), which are small things but actually matter, at least to me.
Yesterday, I went out with my old English cram school teacher. I knew her since I was 3 years old. I remember she taught me basic English vocabulary of the cooking utensil. I used to bring my cooking toy utensil and she held and showed me one of the toys, pronouncing the vocabulary, “This is a fork”. Since then, I always remember that English is a fun subject to learn and that memory resonates with me until now.
Okie, back to the topic, we went together to one of the biggest malls in my city. During the “window-shopping”, we talked about many things, especially life (ya, as expected 🙈). She told me that she feels the young generation nowadays often feels confused about life, what to do next and the future. I told her that it’s true. It really is. Even I am experiencing it right now. I told her why it’s like that. As part of the young generation nowadays, I feel like everyone's expectations of me are high — which makes my expectations of myself also high. And high expectations mean more anxiety because reality often differs from our expectations. People always say that we don’t have to live up people's expectations of us but that’s hard to do, especially when you are dealing with the typical Asian parents (don’t let my parents read this ok). Yup, that’s what I told her and she agreed (she is a mother too, so she understands). Shortly, we were thirsty and decided to grab our boosts (you know, the fruit smoothie brand which comes from the “g’day mate”). We slurped our smoothies and suddenly she said, “Do you remember the little kid that you taught last time?” (fyi, I kinda helped her, teaching one of her students English last time) “Yes, what’s up with her?” I answered, curious. “She asked me where you were and that she missed you.” she replied, smiling. I responded with, “awwww”. But, it was true, it was very heartwarming. I melted🫠. I mean, a little kid missed me… it’s not something that I hear every day. This small but very kind gesture really enlightens my day.
We headed back home and I was driving. During the drive, I was thinking about the thing earlier. It’s nice when we hear someone misses us but more importantly, it feels nice when we know someone feels our presence is useful and helpful to them. Yep, life is more worth-living when we are not only living for ourselves but for others as well. It’s about sharing and contributing to the people around us and society. If you are reading this doesn’t mean I encourage you to quit your current job and go on full-time volunteering (I mean we still need $$$ to survive, but if you are privileged enough to do that, go ahead 😉), but yes you can always start small. It could be just praising people or saying nice things about them instead of criticizing them. Or you can always clean up your leftovers after eating out to ease the waiters’ job. Small gesture, great impact. That’s the headline of tonight, HAHAHA. I just changed the title into this (the original title was, Little Thing That Matters, but I guess that wasn’t catchy enough lol). Yup, so, what are we waiting for? Let’s start small and impact others’ lives. Good night!!! (Sorry, it’s almost 12AM here, time to sleep!💤)
