Small Courtesies

Today I forwarded some documents to our staff here with a note that I could not print out one of the documents using the printer at my desk. I asked that they print out their own copies for use later in the day. Just now, one of the staff brought me a printed copy, asking, "Did you need one of these yourself?" Of course I did, but I had not asked for it. This small courtesy was offered naturally and easily, almost nonchalantly, but it made a big impression on me. It made me realize that it is these small courtesies that provide a lift during the day. Conversely, it is the absence of small courtesies which can make getting through the day a burden.

I have written here of big commitments to help -- offering to dig someone out of a snowbank, helping to right a wrong, even making a pledge to save the environment. All of these represent wonderful offers to embody an ideal of service, justice, or harmony. But in my daily life, I realize that I am most steadily strengthened by small courtesies -- the woman in the Post Office parking lot whom I don't know who calls out that she likes the way my scarf is sparkling in the sun; or the driver who lets me make a late lane change without scowling; or the person who just smiles at the fact that I am late for a meeting. These acts inspired by the Golden Rule (which is really what small courtesies are) keep me going for minutes or hours and provide a sweet memory when I reflect on the week that has just passed.

Small courtesies are absolutely free. They require little time to produce and no investment of monetary resources. They arise quite naturally from what I am coming to believe is true thinking "out of the box." Thinking out of the box I now consider to be thinking first of other people rather than thinking first of oneself. Being able to put oneself in the shoes of someone else, to see the world from the other's perspective, to imagine how I appear to the other, will certainly increase the number of small courtesies that I will extend during the day.

Like your best teachers and mentors have probably already told you, extending small courtesies magically inspires others to extend small courtesies to you. There is a kind of zone of kindness, mildness, and humility that is created within which the potential for being good to one another can be infinitely reflected.

There is really nothing that interferes with extending small courtesies other than the ego. So when I say that small courtesies are absolutely free, I am assuming that a great price has already been paid. That is the price that we pay when we consciously make the choice to put the ego aside in order to experience life more directly, more naturally, and more fully. The filter of the ego is a limitation in many ways. One of the things that egotism limits is the number of small courtesies that we perform. The measurement recorded on a virtual "ego-meter" could be assessed every night by reflecting on the number of small courtesies that we extended during the day, how naturally they arose, and how good we felt in the performance of them. On a good day, the afterglow of having given and received small courtesies will be an indicator that the ego has assumed its proper role as the servant of our being, and not our master.

Small courtesies are, like many small entities, very big when you really get to know them.