A few weeks ago I sat outside of my university’s cafeteria with my on campus ministry. For about an hour we sat there asking every passerby if they would like a piece of candy and a compliment. About 75% of the students asked what they had to do in order to receive these. Some people even asked if they were giving us the compliments as we were all girls. All of them were stunned to find out that we were giving both free of charge.

This experience stayed with me for days after. It struck me how many people didn’t understand the nice gesture we were offering. After mulling it over I realized that society has taught my generation that nothing is free. We have been taught to work for everything and that everything has a price. There is certainly a lot to value from that, but it has also taught us that dependence on another person is out of the question. Not to mention that anything free is suspicious. We can’t accept an honest act of kindness without questioning a person’s motive.

This has brought on a fend for yourself environment where everyone is only in it for themselves. I believe that there is a reason “random acts of kindness” are being praised and seen as something above the norm instead of people being decent human beings and looking out for each other. I hope that we can work to change this into the norm.