In the arms of a complete stranger, sirens wailing in the distance, I feel time come to a stop for a moment. I’m shaking, staring over her shoulder at the black car stopped in the intersection, hazards mid-flash. Through her tinted window, I can feel the driver staring at me coldly. Suddenly, the stranger’s dog licks my hand, and everything resumes motion.

It’s a cliche idea, but the tiniest action can change everything. One miscalculated left turn, one minor collision on an unfamiliar intersection, and your whole outlook is shifted. The stranger releases her embrace and asks if I feel any better. And, honestly, I do.

In that same manner, one hug can give an impressionable teenager an epiphany on the sidewalk while getting questioned by the police. It can help her smile when the officer tells her it will be alright and then help her actually believe, yeah, it will.

The woman with the dog, wearing a gentle smile while I wait for my father to pick up the phone, is unaware that she just awakened something within me. Her kindness, with no expectation of anything in return, was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to make someone else’s world just the tiniest bit brighter.

Now, on Saturdays, I make an effort to visit the animal shelter and help clean up after the cats. Sometimes I wonder if anyone would notice if I got listless in my cleaning, lazily skipping a few spots. But then I remember the woman, her shining altruism chasing away my dark tunnel vision, and I scrub the whole cage spotless.

In the moments after the accident, I felt so utterly alone, like an abandoned animal in an aluminum cage. The woman with the dog, slowing down her car and rolling down her window to ask if I was okay, opened that metal-barred door and reached in to help.

When you look closely enough, life isn’t about the money, or the fame, or even the excitement - the beauty is written at your feet, between the cracks of the sidewalk, where tiny flowers find a way to bloom from the concrete. Life is about stopping to help a scared teenager who doesn’t know how to handle a car accident, and seeing her anxiety dissipate when your dog runs up to her.

Between the woman and the cats, my self-proclaimed life purpose has shifted in the past few months from finding my own personal happiness to helping others find theirs. While unsure about how I would like to go about this, whether it be through science, art, or writing, I am positive that I would like to do something that can help people through the difficulties life presents. Because, in my eyes, nothing is trivial: whether it be evoking a genuine laugh or leaving a 25% tip, anything that can lift another person’s spirits is always something worth doing. 

After the police and other driver have finished their questions and gone their separate ways, I’m left in my car, but no longer alone. The woman is in her own vehicle, window down and waiting next to me until my parents confirm they’re on their way. I thank her for everything she’s done, and before she leaves, she smiles and says one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard:

“I’m just happy I could help.”