It's not that hard.
Reaching out to a stranger, be it holding open a door for someone with his or her hands full, or letting someone go ahead in the grocery line.
Or right up to saving a life.
We call them random acts of kindness, and they are the kind of randomness people welcome into their lives.
This week the community learned about the heroic actions of four Lower Mainland drivers who helped a woman who was suffering a massive heart attack while driving on the highway near the Brunette Avenue exit.
Further down the road, people tried to help at the scene of a crash in Kootenay Park between a tractor trailer and a vehicle carrying a family of four.
In one case, a life was saved - at least long enough for the trained professionals to take over. In the other, four lives were lost despite efforts of passersby - but the fact that people were so willing to help may give at least a bit of comfort to the victims' survivors. The decency of people around us always tends to have an uplifting influence, even in the darkest circumstances.
What the heroes - and they are heroes, by any yardstick - did in those circumstances was somewhat more expansive than the opportunities for random acts of kindness that we normally encounter.
But the contagious feeling of goodness that we can engender with a simple act of "being nice" to other people works at every level.
And on top of that, in all our combined time as journalists here at The Record, we've never found anyone who felt regret at having helped someone else. On the contrary, all reports indicate that it feels great.
So the next time you see someone in need of a helping hand, reach out.
You may not always be saving a life, but you'll certainly be touching a heart - maybe even your own.
