The world is such a lovely place lately isn’t it? With terrorist attacks and wars, genocides and homicides, carjackings and just general disrespect, it’s great to be around other people now, right? Imagine what it would be like if everyone was 5 percent nicer in their day-to-day dealings or spent 5 percent less time thinking about what’s best for themselves and opened up their eyes to the rest of the world.

Sure, there are times when you have to do what’s best for you and you alone, but that’s an extreme and how often are extremes the best course of action 100 percent of the time? That doesn’t work for political systems, sentencing guidelines or much else, so there’s little reason to think that’s the way to go with people.

It’s surprising and a bit dismaying how often people treat kindness and someone who gives any part of themself to help another person with shock. Has it come to this? People should not treat kindness with a questioning eye as if the metric system has suddenly taken over or cell phones have been outlawed in the United States.

Think about what you can accomplish in 5 seconds. Think about what you can accomplish in 2 minutes. Think about what you can accomplish in 2 hours.

Is it going to kill you to pick up that piece of trash you dropped, or even the one that *GASP* someone else dropped and you pick up even though nobody’s paying you to do it? What about when you’re riding down the escalator at the Union Station after your lunch break and a homeless man falls down at the bottom of the escalator? Can you spare two minutes to help him up and ask if he’s okay?

5 seconds, 2 minutes, 2 hours may seem like a lot of time to give to another person, after all you could spend that time sleeping, checking away messages or playing video games. But before using “your” time, think about what 5 seconds, 2 minutes, or 2 hours could mean to someone else.

To quote Aesop, “No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.”