Chapter 1: Kindness Isn't Normal Chapter 1 KINDNESS ISN'T NORMAL I spend a lot of time thinking about the importance of Kindness in a world seemingly too busy for it. Kindness is one of these essential things that we collectively say is good, but we collectively aren't very good at. Why? Why are we so bad at something we believe in? Why is it that we can so universally agree on the value of something and not be very skilled at it? How can Helga sit in pain, alone in an airport, and have three thousand people bypass her suffering? This book, in many ways, is for Helga. Almost every day I think or talk about her story. In some ways it's because I know that, at any given moment, I could live her story. I'm acutely aware that none of us are immune from adversity. We will all, at some point along the way, be desperate for a moment of human Kindness and connection. For two hours, three thousand strangers walked by her moment of profound hurt.

In her deepest sadness and loneliness, thousands of opportunities for companionship and comfort shuffled or sprinted by on their own well-intentioned way. I was in the Hot Dog Seat, crying while she cried, when she arrived at her conclusion: "You know what I realized as three thousand people walked by, Houston? I realized that Kindness isn't normal." Kindness isn't normal. Those words have stuck with me all these years. It has been the foundation upon which I've built much of what I do, because I want to live in a world where Kindness is the baseline--a world where everyone is capable of meeting the basic human need for attention, hopefulness, and care. A world where people have the skills and the courage to stop and help someone crying in the airport. A world that believes in Kindness as the single most important skill for more meaningful lives and more abundant, caring, connected communities. I believe in a world where Kindness is normal .

And I've learned along the way that it's going to take a lot of work.