I was consuming some reading material this morning when I stumbled across a short video. It was a one minute montage of children interacting with their athletic stars. The theme of the video was kindness, and the interaction between the children and their favorite star athletes was exactly that, demonstrations of kindness by the athletes to the kids.

I watched the one minute montage and watched it again, and again, three times in succession. I kept pausing the video in one particular spot, the interaction between a hockey player named Jordin Tootoo and a young fan standing with his father at the entrance/exit of the locker room as the players left the ice. The game was over and the young fan yelled, “Tootoo!,” extending his little fist for the traditional bump. Jordin Tootoo stopped and said, “Hey buddy,” than paused again. Moments later he turned over his hockey stick to the little boy saying, “This is all yours.” The young man’s face beamed, his smile larger than any smile I’d seen in some time. And his excitement punctuated by what sounded like a hyena’s giggle was magic…the boy could hardly contain himself. 

It was a wonderful moment. 

I don’t really know why that struck me so, but it did as did the other scenes in the short video. There’s something about kindness shown by these stars interacting with kids who see them as larger than life heroes descended from Mount Olympus if only for a moment. For a brief moment, those kids were allowed to dream, their dream becoming reality right in front of them.

There’s magic in that moment of instant of kindness that washes over the shores of our self-imposed negativity thrust upon us by a media that would rather wash us with dirt rather than clean us with good. Dirt sells. Period. It’s as though its a conspiracy intended to keep the darkness all around us, only letting us come up for air in a rare moment to breathe, only to submerge us once again.

Or, maybe we’ve become so used to unkindness, so beaten down by the negative in so much of what we’re exposed to on television, film, or our every day media that when a true act of kindness shows itself, it’s like finding a diamond in the sand. 

I don’t have an answer, only that in that one minute of video I felt refreshed, almost moved to a tear, a lump forming in my throat and a smile crossing my face. It was a nice way to wake up. 

There were a few times in my life I’ve had interactions like those children experienced, and each of them stuck in my mind to this day, one of them so improbable as to defy expectations. I was driving on I90 on the way to our family restaurant for work when I glanced over to my right and there, driving his Lambo was Walter Payton. For some reason, he glanced at me, too. I don’t usually get star struck, but as an 18 year old who’d just seen Walter Payton mere feet away, despite going nearly 80 miles per hour on I90 (Yes, I was speeding, as he was), I was struck by those stars. 

Throwing caution to the wind, along with my senses, I put my knee on the steering wheel and motioned with both hands in a writing fashion, asking for an autograph. While laughing and driving, he pointed to the phone on his ear (only the rich guys had “car phones” in those days). I kept pace with him and then, knee still on the steering wheel, folded my hands in prayer, smiling as I did so. He laughed harder.

Then, he pulled off to the side of the expressway. 

Rolling down his window, he greeted me, still in his sweats from his workout, and signed:

Walter Payton

Sweetness

#34

Chicago Bears

We spoke for a moment as cars whizzed by and I invited him to my father’s restaurant not far from his home. Then, we shook hands and he left. As for me, well, I didn’t stop smiling all the way to the restaurant, and I still smile every time I think of that story, as I hope you will.

Mount Olympus was missing one of its members that day.

This morning, when I saw that video, I just couldn’t help but to write about it. See, the great danger in society today is twofold: First, we’ve become so caught up in the macro world of party politics, perceptions of injustice either real or imagined, and allowing others to fuel our dislike, even hatred of others for various reasons, we begin to lose sight of ourselves. It’s like a film that covers us, obscuring our vision of what’s good and right and kind that exists before our very eyes. Then, when goodness and kindness reveal themselves, it’s like spotting the rarest of birds on one’s porch, with all the oohing and ahhhing that goes along with it. We want to hold on to it, but it’s only there for the briefest of moments before the dark cloud comes back obscuring the sun, a dangerous and self-destructive habit.

Second, we’ve become skeptical. Skeptical of everything, preferring to wallow in the bad rather than celebrate the good. Its as though we’ve become conditioned to seek out the negative rather than embrace the positive, the positive an aberration, a phantom only present for a moment and then gone. So many prefer victimhood, prefer the dark, as though drinking from its cup is an inevitability when often it is a choice. This doesn’t mean to say there isn’t negativity in this life, but it does suggest we exacerbate it by focusing on it more than its alter-ego…the good. The innocent. The kind, which is around us as well, often hidden in plain sight. What we choose to focus on is what generally is.

We’ve forgotten how to see the world with the eyes of a child.

There is no sound better on this planet than the laughter of children, especially when a dream comes true for them like meeting and interacting with those they consider their heroes. If we could only bottle that and sell it, we’d be billionaires. Or, maybe we don’t need to bottle it at all…we just need to cultivate it amongst ourselves, engaging in random acts of kindness when we can, not allowing the jaded world to jade us in the process. We need to laugh, to smile, and understand all hope is not lost, for if we don’t, that’s exactly what might happen.