When I was in primary 6, I was the one always representing my school for academic competitions at the lower primary level. There was this time I spent two weeks to prepare for a quiz competition only to fall ill two days before the competition day.
Although my health was in jeopardy, I could not help but think about the competition all the time. They eventually resorted to my backup and from what I heard, my school lost. I wasn’t just sad, I was also angry.
One particular day when my elder brother was helping me take my medication, he looked at me for about 30 seconds and said “how can I person crying be so beautiful?” And anyone who has a brother would understand the weight this carries because brothers never say such things to their sisters.
In that moment, I’m sure you can guess what happened. I stopped crying and began smiling. Ever since that day, I got to understand that sometimes, all it takes are kind words to make someone feel at rest, happy and loved.
And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing since then. I admire the works of charity organizations and philanthropists making the world a better place with financial support but as an individual, the little I do is to be kind with my words. I never go out and return without telling people they are beautiful or how great they are doing or how much the society appreciates them, especially for civil servants.
In all of these, the common factor I always recognize is the smile which appears from nowhere on their faces, no matter how tired they seem to be. And it’s no surprise to me because even though the incident with my brother happened so many years ago, anytime I remember, my face registers a wide smile.
I also try listening to people and surprising them with little gifts but what I’ve realized to be doing the magic is being kind with words. Gifts could get missing and one could even be overwhelmed after listening to someone for a while but beautiful words serve as something for people to hold onto when all they see is chaos.
I was going to talk about what I would do to help the world be a better place but then I remembered oh, I was already doing it. I believe being thoughtful starts with the smallest things. And it’s sad that we often jump from that onto the bigger ones. Of course, I’m not saying the bigger ones aren’t important, they are but I believe most times, the very little things like our words could actually take a person through life when all hope seems to be lost.
