Random acts of kindness go beyond feeding people or making donations to charities. Even the smallest gestures can make a big difference in someone's life. A woman from North Carolina experienced such kindness in the least expected place—on the floor of a Walmart store. On November 13, 2017, which happened to be "World Kindness Day," a stranger left behind a heartwarming surprise for Julia Stultz, her family, and the store’s workers by leaving an envelope of cash to spark a chain of goodwill.
Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Viktoriia Bielik
“It’s uncommon nowadays,” some customers said in disbelief, according to Fox News affiliate WJZY. It happened when Julia and her family were sauntering through the shelves stocked with groceries at the big-box retail center in Charlotte. When they made their way into the clothing section, Julia’s son pointed out something. He had spotted an envelope lying on the floor. They picked up the envelope to see if they might find its owner.
Representative Image Source: People walk near the entrance to a Walmart store on May 14, 2024 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Both sides of the envelope had handwritten messages scrawled into it. One flap read "With Love, Amen," and the message on the other said, “If this card has found you, open it. It's yours.” Julia slipped her hand inside the envelope and from it, she pulled out a crisp $100 note along with a card that had an important instruction written on it. According to this instruction, the finder of the card was supposed to “pay it forward.”
Signing their name as “a friend,” the stranger had written, “May this gift bring you a little peace today. One day, please pay it forward. May the blessings of God be on you always!" Julia regretted not being able to thank the generous human in person. Meanwhile, the news outlet reached out to her fellow customers who were as surprised by this unusual act of kindness, as she was.
Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Viktoriia Bielik
"I’ve always wondered if there was stuff like that in the world and I’ve always said if I have the chance to pay it forward, I would absolutely do it," said Akilli Omari, another Walmart customer, before adding, “It’s uplifting and inspiring.” This random event energized Omari’s spirits so much that he said he would start his own “pay it forward” chain of kindness. "Maybe we should all consider doing one ourselves. I think I will." One more fellow customer, Lamar McLaughlin, said, "I think people should be more kind to each other. It's just, I will say it's not hard to do, but it's uncommon nowadays."
On social media, people are singing praises for the anonymous person who stepped forward to initiate this whole kindness chain. “Restored my faith in humanity,” said Rose Schreyer. Roxy Price said, "Good to hear nice things in this sad & crazy world. God bless the person who did that. Praying the lady who got it was able to pay it forward. You never know when someone needs it." Gerry Johnson commented, “There are still amazing and thoughtful people left in this screwed-up world!”
Robin Williams performs for military men and women as part of a United Service Organization (USO) show on board Camp Phoenix in December 2007
Gif of Robin Williams via 
A woman conducts a online color testCanva
A selection of color swatchesCanva
A young boy takes a color examCanva 
Pictured: A healthy practice?
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.