People Confess The Most Selfless Thing They've Done That No One Knows About

People Confess The Most Selfless Thing They've Done That No One Knows About

While the world is a dark and scary place, there would not be a world, or a human race, without inherent kindness.

Kindness always gives you a little thump to your heart that nothing else can truly provide. A rush of knowing you've made someone's day better. And you may change the trajectory of that person's life because of it.


To hear more of these kindnesses, for inspiration, Redditor slizsarbleh asked:

"What is something you've done purely out of the goodness of your heart, but have never told anyone?"

Here were some of those stories.

One Grieving Heart To Another

"I lost my mom earlier this year and am still working through the grief. The first week a came back my coworkers had gave me a check for several hundred dollars as a kind gesture. I was truly overwhelmed by the generosity."

"The following week I came into the break room to find one of the techs with a lost look on her face. She had just gotten a phone call that her brother had been murdered the night before."

"She had moved to our city just a year prior and didn't have any family close by. As I held her and listened to her cry, I booked her a flight home."

"It was several hundred dollars as she is from a small town and the flight was for later that day. I told her to go be with family and let me know when she was ready to come back. I had no doubt that is exactly what my mom would have wanted me to do."-thatgirlmocha

Taking It For The Team

"I was extremely stressed and took a mental health day, planning on going to mom's and crying myself to sleep. We ended up going to the mall, and even though money was really tight for her, she wanted to buy me lunch (we split the bill)."

"She realized that she lost a newer $50 bill while walking around. She was devastated."

"I traded my smaller bills to a cashier for a newer $50, folded it like she would, and tossed it under the seat of her car. The next day she called me, almost crying because she was excited to find it and said that without it, groceries would've been pretty tight that week."

"Taking me out that day prevented me from having a full breakdown. I think $50 was a small price to pay for what she did for me that day."-SleepsLikeACat

Services For The Poor

"I do IT work, usually small business and a lot of home repair. I have many wealthy clients and a few not so fortunate. It is not unusual for me to go to a home and it is obvious they are barely scraping by."

"So I either don't charge those people, or make it a nominal fee. I also refurb the old PC's and give them to people who have one that is not repairable."

"My best fee ever was a basket of home grown creole tomatoes, damn those things are delicious."-Disposable70

It really does cost nothing to be kind.

Just A Game, But More Than Just A Game

"This isn't as impressive as the comments I've read but this is just something I did recently."

"I'm a member of a Sims group on FB where people talk about the game, expansion packs etc. I noticed a comment by a teenager who said her favourite pack would be Pets but she can't afford it."

"I went onto her page and saw that she really loved horses. I could also tell from her pictures that her mum was disabled and money looked tight."

"I was fortunate enough when I was her age to always get the packs on the release dates and I used The Sims as a wind down from revising and school."

"I thought that this girl needed the escapism way more than I ever did so I bought every expansion pack, messaged her the activation codes, a link to a YouTube video on how to use them, and a short message saying I hope you enjoy playing and to keep smiling."

"I really do wish her the very best."-MariaOSullivan

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Saving And Changing Lives

"Bought insulin for the child of a lady in front of me at the pharmacy. The woman (single mom) was in tears & didn't have the $200 copay for that month."

"I gave her my number & told her to call me within the next few days. That was a few years ago. She now manages the office at my practice, makes enough $ for anything she needs/wants, & is one of my closest friends."

"And now she has excellent insurance for herself & her son! Be kind—it can literally change lives! <3"-EJX713

A Simple Blanket

"There's a semi-secluded bus stop beside a store I used to work at, and a homeless guy started sleeping there on the bench halfway between the stop and the parking lot one winter."

"One day I got to work 15 mins early and saw him sleeping, wearing just a flannel and jeans. So I ram into the store, bought a blanket, and covered him up with it."

"He never woke up so he didn't know it was me. Every time I saw him sitting on the bench he had the blanket wrapped around him."-SeleneSlayer

Even In The Face Of A Feud

"I have an ongoing silent feud with one branch of my family (my dad's cousins and their kids, my second cousins), and we haven't spoken or really seen each other in over 10 years."

"I've pretty much written them off, and I don't really care if we live out the rest of our lives without patching things up."

"Two months ago, one of my cousins from that branch unexpectedly died at the age of 38. Their immediate family had always had financial troubles."

"So while I didn't fly across the country to attend the funeral, I quietly sent my sister a bunch of money and instructed her to pretend it was hers and pay off part of their funeral expenses."

"And then just last week, some of my other relatives started a GoFundMe for one of my aunts in that branch (she's my dad's oldest cousin)."

"She has Stage IV cervical cancer and wants to leave the hospital to pass away at home surrounded by her loved ones, but the hospital won't release her until her medical bills are paid in full (this is in another country)."

"I haven't told my dad or anyone else in the family, but I anonymously donated my last paycheck plus the money I had been saving for my upcoming birthday trip."

"I don't really consider it out of the goodness of my heart, though. It's just that the thought of an elderly, terminally ill person dying alone somewhere that isn't home eats away at me so much that I physically couldn't sit by and do nothing."-OrifielM

And these gestures are the kind where the kindness is its own reward.

To Instill Hope

"A lady was fleeing an abusive marriage without much more than her kids and the clothes on her back. Word went out within a whisper network requesting a few essentials she needed."

"Packed up several things from the request list and also one thing that wasn't requested. I make jewelry as a hobby. Put a pair of handmade earrings into a gift bag: silver and pearls."

"Added a handwritten note that every woman deserves something beautiful and sending good wishes her way."-doublestitch

Someone's Housing

"At the beginning of the pandemic, I was volunteering at a local pizza shop to distribute slices to kids who otherwise couldn't get fed because the schools were shutdown."

"There was a woman with 3 kids that came by every few days to get slices. Turns out the father had died unexpectedly right before the pandemic started and they lost their house because of the slumlord they were renting from."

"The mother lost her job because she had no one to watch the kids. They were living in their minivan and things were bad for them."

"They were so nice and grateful, but ashamed when they'd come by to get slices that I genuinely felt for them. I had lost my job and got a pretty decent windfall of 2 months worth of unemployment and the CARES Act at once."

"My landlord had a few properties open and is a close friend, so I got in touch with him and we worked out me paying their security deposit and the first 2 months of rent and he'd cover their utilities."

"I gave her his number and said he might be able to help and they moved in the next day. They've been there ever since and are doing extremely well now."-eyexxiii

A Little Birthday Surprise

"I was in my art class in high school and there was a girl who I didn't really know a few grades younger. I could tell she didn't have many friends but was really sweet."

"She was talking to me one day and told me her birthday was soon and that she was so excited. I decided to send her those balloons and whatnot you can get through the student store on her birthday, though she didn't know me very well so I didn't sign my name."

"It just so happened that the student store worker brought them in during our art class and I got to see her reaction. She lit up and kept telling us it had to have been her mom or her best friend who did it, and how she couldn't believe that someone got her something and she wouldn't stop smiling the whole rest of class."

"I never told her it was me, I was just happy she felt special. That was a pretty good day."-Rbbbb30

Humans, above all else, have the capacity to be unendingly kind. Despite all the darkness in the world, it is these little moments of light that define us as a species.

Hopefully this has given you some faith in humans today.


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