Authentic | The Kingdom of Matt

Ever had a random act of kindness bestowed upon you?

Well I have. Many times. And I absolutely treasure every single one.

The thing is, I’m not the type of guy that goes for big things. I’m not into big fancy weddings or ostentatious rituals or elaborate and complicated recipes.

I prefer the small things. The little things that make all the difference. The things which no one realises but that makes everything worth it. The little acts of kindness.

I mean, I know it doesn’t make much sense. Why should a tiny ‘hold the lift’ change the entire course, and mood, of a day? Why is it that something huge can mean so much less than some random, minuscule compassion?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s because people don’t have to do the small things. The small forgivings and the small thankyous. The tiny things which are so lost in today’s society and hence simultaneously mean so much more.

I could be just old-fashioned. Maybe it’s wrong of me to want an e-mail back when I send something to someone. Maybe it’s wrong of me to expect that people are going to be decent, honest and kind. Maybe it’s wrong of me to want people to ask “How are you?” and for them to really, actually care how I am.

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I’m premature.

But you know what? When someone does something — something so teeny tiny that the whole world wouldn’t realise they even did it — that’s when it truly counts.

A smile on the bus or a “good morning” to a co-worker. Anything, truly anything, that no one would ever think is ’something’.

But they are something. They are the world. The small actions are the actions that define the whole universe.

I got follow friday-ed today by three people. Three people who have caused a ripple of joy in my life.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: A little bit of kindness will go a very long way.

In the not-too-distant past, every Friday morning, from 8-50 to 9-40, I received some lovely ol’ counselling from a lovely woman named Lisa. Every Friday, I would go in, rant and rave about practically everything in my life, occasionally do a therapeutic exercise, and then trot off to my history lesson just after.

I remember one time doing this exercise (which she never told me whether or not it was a *real* exercise or something she had just made up — she was good fun) where I had to draw a tree and then list names of people I know within it. For one reason or another, I decided I would write down the names of people who either really bugged me or who I aspired to be like.

(A tree, in case you’ve never seen one)

One certain individual, who we will call Emily, was in this tree picture. The next part of the exercise was to cross people off until we were left with one person. Each time I crossed someone off, I explained who they were to give Lisa some insight into my choices.

Emily, as I remember, was seen by others (and me for a long time, before we started to really chat) to be a character of infectious happiness, her wonderfully-broad smile and her ability to almost literally light-up a room with her brilliance. I chose her, though, not really for all any of these wonderful qualities but, really, because I admired her genuine sense of self. She didn’t pretend to be someone else. She always was just Emily. Not ‘Nice Emily’ and then sometimes ‘Bitchy Emily’, and other times ‘Silly Emily’. She was always just her genuine self. I admired — and admire — that a lot. A heck of a lot.

And it makes me smile a bit now. A certain blogger who I also admire greatly seems to follow this trend a lot too. I’ll admit you can never know anyone completely and truly just through the words they write, but I think you can still learn a lot. And when I look at this blogger, Mipa, it just makes me wonder: why can’t I be more like that?

But really, honestly, I think part of becoming genuine is a part of growing up. Not a growing up that you can do by gaining years, but by gaining experience. Just by glancing back now, the people who I’ve always found the most curious and admirable are the ones who are just themselves. They’re genuine.

Isn’t it funny how even the most fleeting characters of life — the lady that served water in an exam, a mum I once knew who was always a tiny bit dull, or even a slightly crazy girl from my GCSE Spanish class — all have these qualities about them without even doing anything…

Without doing anything but being themselves.

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P.S. Even if you aren’t the lady that served water in my exam, Mipa, the crazy girl from Spanish, Emily or that slightly-dull mum, you could very likely be one of those people who contain that special spark in my eyes. Obviously, though, it would be practically impossible to list every person who has affected my life in that way. And even if you don’t contain it for me, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that for another you capture it for them. And even then, just because you might not be fully ‘yourself’ all the time doesn’t mean you don’t add value to my life. I didn’t list this person, but she’s quite literally the most influential individual in my life of what it means to be a content, in-love gay person. We all play a part in this big web of a world. Remember this.

Don’t worry, I know there are typos and grammatical errors in this post — just like every other one. I’m sure you can work out what went wrong. Forgive me?

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