Unexpected Little Secret Messages Of Love
One woman brightens people’s days with just a few simple words
A woman I’ll call Minah relates an episode about six months ago, when she was having “a pretty low and kind of lonely day.” The words of an old friend returned to her, who had said that when she gave out what she wanted, her mood improved dramatically.
“I thought, well, I love tiny messages that feel like they’re exactly for me, and I love finding them randomly in my life,” Minah told Good Turns recently. “That’s when I feel like the universe is somehow blessing me, and that I’m not alone.” The next thing to do, naturally, was to leave random little messages for other people. And that’s exactly what Minah started doing.
“It’s such a sweet giving, and that just feels so much better than traffic. Even if I’m in traffic.”
“They needed to be little, they needed to be unexpected, and they needed to have meaning,” Minah says. She wrote down six of them, each a short phrase that had brought her joy or solace at some time in the past. “There’s one that just says, ‘You look fantastic!'” She chose an elegant font, printed them on glossy paper, cut them out, and started leaving them in places for people to find.
The experience immediately turned Minah’s day around. “I felt like I had a secret that was mine, like I was literally doing the day on my terms, and those terms were secret messages of love, and suddenly the whole day was transformed,” she recalls.
Since then, Minah has been leaving notes once every week or two for strangers to find, or sometimes more often. “I don’t have a systematic approach. Some days I’m on a little bit of a mission with it,” she says. “I’ll leave one on a table in a cafe, or if I go to the gym I’ll leave one in the locker that I was using.”
Minah says she’s never actually witnessed someone finding one of her notes. But no matter, as she says the gesture has a salutary effect on her own life. “It’s amazing how it happens, I’m doing this thing and my stress level just goes down,” she says. “It’s something about choosing how to live my day. Whatever else might be going on, this is really the path that I’m on. It’s such a sweet giving, and that just feels so much better than traffic. Even if I’m in traffic.”
Minah’s messages include reassurances such as “You are loved” and “You are forgiven,” as well as more specific sentiments such as, “You are capable as hell. It’s inspiring.” There are one or two others, of course, but we won’t spoil the surprise in case you should find one of Minah’s notes on your table the next time you sit down at your favorite cafe. And if not, make a few of your own!
Posted December 8, 2017
