Above all, be thankful for your brain's supply of oxytocin, the small, celebrated peptide hormone that, by the looks of it, helps lubricate our every prosocial exchange, the thousands of acts of kindness, kind-of kindness and not-as-nakedly-venal-as-I-could-have-been kindness that make human society possible.
The classrooms of the local comprehensive, bursting at the seams as a result of its growing reputation for excellence, are all familiar to me; so too is the sense of community and responsibility that means that people look out for each other and check in on elderly neighbours, and the many small acts of kindness that make a big impact.
"It was his patience and kindness that made Mohammady so easy to work with".
I was lucky enough to know Dodie and her husband, John Rosekrans, growing up and the wonderful thing is that as "larger than life" as she was, as they both were to me, it was her down-to-earth quality, generous spirit and kindness that made her so grand.
It is a laconic world where adults conserve "syllables as if to conserve breath" while children brave an "outsized landscape" by day and seek shelter by night even as they long to break away from the "regime of small kindnesses" that makes home both comforting and confining.
Ms. Sammon, however, is one of those who perform the kindnesses that make communal life possible -- gently putting drops into the eyes of an elderly woman, for example, and listening sympathetically to the disjointed complaints of another.
We haven't had the weather that some countries enjoy, but the Olympic and Paralympic volunteers have created a knock-on effect of sunny kindness that has made trolling round London a bit like living somewhere like Spain, where people seem to be relaxed and nice to each other most of the time.
Little pieces of kindness that will make your karma forever good when it bounces back your way.
Think of your smile as a good deed or an act of kindness that could make someone's day just a little bit brighter.
