Strangers/Random Acts Of Kindness Essay Sample

For Task #1, I chose to meet a person in Wheatley Café in the Wheatley Center at Morris University. His name was Rick, and I learned he was majoring in Cyber Forensics. It was hard to show up and talk to Rick at first. He was a stranger, and I did not know him. However, this was a class assignment that I knew would help me be a better person. As an international student from Saudi Arabia, I know there are many times were people look at me and do not get to know me based on how I look. I think this is wrong. In addition, because of the generation I am in, I think we miss out on getting to know each other too often because we have cell phones. Rick and I talked about this first, actually. We both realized how strange it seemed that we were having a conversation with a stranger, but also without our phones. Normally, we would be checking texts and emails through a conversation.
Because I knew nothing about Rick and did not have my phone as a distraction, I was able to ask him things that I would have ignored on a normal day. I learned Rick was an only child. He grew up in a household with just his mother and has lived near the university his entire life. I cannot relate to much of Rick’s life, but he was happy to hear about my life. I come from a bigger family than his, and have obviously done more traveling because I am not from this country. He thought it was exciting that we lived in a world where, as he put it, “literally anybody can end up in the same place to pursue their dreams.” He was talking about him and me, and how different our backgrounds were. I left the conversation feeling as if Rick was more of a friend than a stranger. He said he felt the same. We were both surprised by this, but happy, as well.
The second task asked us to create an act of kindness toward a person who was not expecting it. I have a new neighbor who appears very elderly. She always looks like she has trouble moving from her home to her car, or her home to her mailbox. It looks like she struggles to get small items in through her door. She moves slowly, but I have never been fast enough to help her with any of her items. I decided, however, that she would be the person who would receive my unexpected act of kindness.
We have gotten bad weather lately, and it has snowed a lot. Her car was covered and I knew she would be unable to move it all on her own. I also knew she would probably have errands to run, so I moved the snow off her car for her. She came out of her house as I was doing this and was so excited. She started shouting and was almost crying. She thanked me and introduced herself, her name is Alice, and I introduced myself, and she offered me a cup of tea to warm me up when I was done. She was very thankful that I had taken the time to help her that she promised to bake me some cookies the next time she bakes a batch, as well. I told her she did not have to, and that her happiness was all the thanks I needed.