At least for me the answer is simple: yes, yes, yes and yes. And this is not just because I used to be a ‘Kind’ back in my childhood in Germany. If you didn’t know, the English word ‘child’ is translated to German language as ‘Kind’.
I still remember the day when in my office working day during a chocolate offering moment a person called what I’m doing a ‘Random act of kindness’. At the time, about more than 15 years ago, my English language skills were still quite shaky. I was visiting Espoo on a business trip from Germany. The level of my language skills at the time was mainly focused on IT and Business English. The words ‘Kind’ and ‘Kindness’ didn’t reached my vocabulary at the time.
While I learned over the last 10 years that my typical interaction with other people, with and without sweet treats is perceived as kind. I deeply care for everyone I meet. I got ‘diagnosed’ with a ‘Helping hand – syndrome’ long time ago at work, if there is a need & chance for me to help a colleague with my knowledge, I’m all for it.
With my photographic memory for people, names, faces and context, I’m really happy and excited when I meet a person I haven’t seen in a really long time. Most impressive example from my own perspective is a former colleague I had seen only once in my life in person. When I saw him 20 years later, I remembered him. It took me a really long time to understand what impact those happy sparks of recognizing people mean to the other person in the interaction.
Such happy reactions seems to be also connected with my skill to smile and laugh. I learned really late in my life that my default reaction when meeting and interacting with people are smiles and laughter. I still recall the day when I spontaneously laughed really loud in a silent coworking space and I felt the immediate need to apologize for disturbing everyone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not smiling 24*7, but it seems my natural reaction to meeting people is to smile and laugh. Now I understand that the recipients of such positive interactions are being seen and might feel such as a kind treatment.
You might also consider bringing people together as an act of kindness, in hindsight I start to understand what difference that can bring to people. To belong to a group which often requires that one or few people who keep a community going. A few examples of doing this are my role as co-founder of the world largest exNokia community called ‘Beyond Nokia’. You can read about it in TechCrunch. Before I moved to Finland in 2012, I organized regular after work gatherings for all my colleagues, including external vendor. Getting people together outside of work, why not. You might need at least that one kind & persistent person who keeps organizing. It doesn’t matter how many people come. I recall inviting over 80 people every 2 months. I said, if you ever leave me sitting alone at the booked table I will stop, that never happened. The last gathering before I moved to Helsinki brought over 50 people together. Almost 15 years later I need to travel all the way from Helsinki to Düsseldorf to initiate the same gathering.
A true breakthrough to understand the impact of my own small actions on others was an online study course I took in 2016. I can highly recommend to everyone as it is still offered. “The science of happiness” from Berkeley University on the edx.org platform. “Learn science-based principles and practices for a happy, meaningful life.” 8 weeks which opened my eyes.
I could go on and on and on, but let me leave this as possible inspiration for yourself and others. Today when I publish this article it is 12th of November 2025, one day prior to World Kindness day. Considering the larger state of the world right now, every possible light based on humans treating each other as humans worthy of small positive actions are needed. In every part of the world!