Helping the Robot: Making little (free) changes that help everybody

Below is a video about a performance art project in which a happy, helpless robot makes its way across a park in NYC with the help of strangers. 

 

You can read all about the project at Tweenbots.com.

Part of the reason this made me smile was because it brings out the best in strangers-- a little nudge here and there and the world is a better place. 

If you saw a cardboard robot with a smiley face, would you help it out? Would you, as one man did, talk to it to warn it of the dangers of the road? Or would you ignore it?

There are so many ways to help people out that don't depend on money, or even a great deal of time. Sometimes it's as simple as helping a stranger on the bus carry their groceries.  Aside from the possibility of making a new friend, it helps create a world where people are more likely to ride the bus than to fire up their cars. Maybe it's providing directions to someone on the street, rather than being suspicious. Maybe it's taking an extra five minutes to shovel the sidewalk in front of the neighbor's house as well.  Or taking the time to recycle, or pick up a piece of litter. Or maybe it's taking the extra ten seconds to throw out the office coffee grinds rather than leaving them for the next person. 

Sometimes when we are on a budget we feel like we are not in a position to give (because we can't afford to bring cupcakes to the function, or pay for gas to get to the community meeting, or don't have the cash to contribute to the office gift pool), or we overcompensate by giving more of our time than we really can.  But this doesn't have to be the case-- we can "help the robot" along a nudge at a time, and sometimes the small, convenient changes add up to a lot of help for not much effort.