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Illustration for article titled Fix Your Bad Mood With a Selfless Act

Photo: Stock-Studio (Shutterstock)

A single morning commute is enough time to gather a thousand seething resentments. People shove, litter, smoke while blocking the sidewalk, speak to you without wearing a mask. By the time you make it safely back home, you might be in full Rorschach-from-Watchmen mode. Instead, fill yourself with the cleansing fire of a kind act.

Now, I hate the vibe of “random acts of kindness.” I’m not the kind of person who celebrates today’s holiday—Random Acts of Kindness Day—but I do appreciate the power of a smug sense of superiority, and one way to earn that is to go out of your way to be nice. Let someone go ahead of you, buy someone coffee, hand out a compliment.

Here’s the bit where I cite some studies, like the University of Louisville study that says people who do good, feel good, and the British study that found people got more pleasure from memories of gift-giving than from memories of buying something for themselves. And there’s more evidence to be found, enough to consider it a straightforward fact that doing good for others is beneficial to you as well.

If you’re in a bad mood, you might not want to think of this in some smarmy “all you need is love” way. Think of it as earning your secret smugness points. Or tricking yourself to stop thinking about the asshole who honked at you for no good reason, and start thinking about the person you gave your bus seat. You’re just making yourself feel good by making someone else feel good.

This story was originally published in November, 2017 and was updated on February 17, 2021 with new photos and to meet Lifehacker style guidelines.



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