a nicer place...

I had a long conversation with one of my doctors the other day. It started about work stuff, he was complaining about the long hours and the bad pay, and somewhere along the line we were talking about our goals, what drives you, what keeps you going through a hundred hour week. He told me he wanted to be a surgeon because he wanted to make people feel better, whether that was cutting someone open to take something out or put something in or sitting up with a relative through the night, reassuring, soothing and making them feel better.

And it got me thinking, what is it that drives me? If I had to sum it up in one line, what would that line be? And I thought about it a long time, and I decided, if I don't achieve anything in this world, I want to make it a nicer place.

And I'm no surgeon or scientist or philanthropist, all I know is small pleasures, sweet treats, kind words. So I set out today to make the world a nicer place. I left compliments on napkins in chain store coffee shops, I wrote messages to my honey when he looks in the mirror, I left chocolate bars on park benches. I put together a little cupcake kit of paper cases, sprinkles and my fail-safe cupcake recipe and left it to be found at a busstop. I had a loyalty card full of stamps redeemable against an extra large coffee that I stuck to my neighbour's front door.

I know that they're only small gestures, but I am all about the small pleasures (and I hope that talking about it here hasn't cheapened these good deeds). But most of all, I hope that I made those tiny bits of the world a nicer place.