I find it challenging to decide how to answer when people ask me how I’m doing. I try not to be superficial, so I give my answer some consideration. I want to strike the balance of respecting that a person may be just be making small talk, or they might be asking out of a desire to really connect. So I want to keep it brief, but open to further conversation. I often end up saying some variation of “hectic, but great”.

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Recently, I’ve gotten into a podcast called Invest Like The Best. The host ends every episode by asking his guest “what’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for you?” To be honest, this didn’t stick out to me until I heard a couple guests answer with some pretty trivial shit. I won’t say which guests, but imagine it’s something like “someone lent me $100 the other day”. And, I must admit, I felt pretty judgy. Like, how privileged must your life be to have something so trivial be the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for you?

To be fair, maybe they were just put on the spot and didn’t have time to think deeply about it. And really, I don’t really know their life, so whatever it was they actually said really made a difference.

Anyway, it got me thinking: what would I say? I’ve got two answers.

Trigger warning: severe depression is discussed.

Continue reading “The kindest things anyone has ever done for me” →