Sarah Warsi

So the other day I was on the subway and it was pretty crowded. There were no seats and I was perfectly content standing while holding onto the overhead handle.

And then out of the blue, I experienced a random act of kindness – out of nowhere: a gentlemen asked me if I wanted to take his seat. He could have asked any one of the sea of people around me, but for whatever reason, he asked me. I politely said no because I was fine where I was, but I was so pleasantly taken aback by such random kindness, that it became the highlight of my day.

If you think about it, how often do you see this kind of thing happen on a subway? The subway is a world in and of itself with people coming and going, listlessly tuning the world out either by absorbing themselves in their phones, immersed in a book, or just plain sneaking in a power nap. It’s amazing just how spaced out people really can be in general – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve waited for an elevator on a specific floor and the doors open with a confused person stepping out thinking it was the lobby – clearly they weren’t paying much attention! hehe

I remember watching a video on YouTube of the singer Brandy – who is a widely recognized international artist having sold millions of albums worldwide and won numerous awards; she was in sweats coming back from the gym on a New York subway and began singing out loud, (and quite beautifully, might I add) and not a peep noticed! The one person that did acknowledge her, did not recognize her and thought she was just starting out. lol Of course it could have been anyone that was doing karaoke, but the fact that an international artist like Brandy went unnoticed just gave the term “spacing out on the subway” a whole new meaning. Or perhaps New Yorkers are just so used to the scene that they just tune them out. Who knows.

Anyways, my point is that it was certainly my ‘feel good’ moment of that particular day for having been singled out for no apparent reason. It really always is the small things that make the greatest impact.

Thank you, Stranger on the subway

 

 

You can find the post in the header here.