Imagine you are walking with your kid in a foreign country. You’ve just flown in and arrived downtown by public transportation, suitcases in tow, and you are a 5 block walk away from your hotel. Your kid steps of a curb incorrectly, you hear a pop, and a scream, and there is your kid, buckled just off the edge of the curb, ankle in hand, crying. Any movement of the ankle results in a scream of agony.
You move off the road and a few people have gathered to help. They tell you there is a hospital just 3 blocks away, and point in the opposite direction of the hotel. You realize that you need to carry your kid and there is no way you can also carry all of your suitcases.
You look up at one of the strangers around you and say, “Can you please do me a favour? Here is my business card, can you please take my bags to our hotel and ask them to store them until we get there?” The person agrees. They head to the hotel, suitcases in tow, you head the other way to the hospital holding your kid.
What are the chances that your bags will be at the hotel when you return from the hospital?
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I was listening to The Tim Ferriss Podcast with his guest, magician Penn Jillette, and Penn had some interesting insights into the kindness of strangers.
He said he doesn’t believe in evil, and that if you look at the vast majority of people in the world they are good and kind.
If someone seeks you out to ‘help you’, their motives might need more scrutiny… but if you get to randomly choose someone, anyone, to help you, then the odds are unbelievably high that this stranger will be good.
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Going back to the scenario:
What are the chances that your bags will be at the hotel when you return from the hospital?
I’d guess pretty close to a hundred percent, what about you?
What does your answer tell you about the kind of world you believe we live in? What experiences have you had to prove or disprove the belief in an inherent kindness of strangers?
