I received a gift, and it turned into a bigger gift.
When I went to college one of the things that was in my welcome packet was a book of free tickets from the public transportation of that city. I had never experienced public transportation before, so of course I immediately planned some trips and went on an adventure. I had so much fun that I felt it was only fair to give feedback to the public transportation organization that made it possible.
In my letter, I wrote to the organization I shared how wonderful the system was, and how easy to use. At first, I was overwhelmed with choices, but it started to make sense, and I even started to prefer certain routes to go places. I was amazed at how superior it was to vehicle transport, which is all I had known in my life. I enjoyed being on the bus, using other forms of transportation, and not having to worry about driving or the costs of parking. I shared all of this and thanked them for the gift they had given me as a humble college student who wouldn’t have done this since I did not have extra money.
Weeks or months went by, and one day I wondered if my letter had been received, or if it had just probably been thrown away. Often when I have written letters with no response you just assume the worst. I checked my mail as I was thinking this and there was a thick envelope with the public transportation logo on the side. I ran back to my room and opened it up. When I opened it up, a ton of ticket booklets poured out and I was confused why as I read the letter.
It turns out that my letter had gone to the president of the organization who thanked me for my feedback. He said he appreciated the point of view I had and my ideas on how to improve things for first-time users. He said that as a gift I was given a year’s worth of tickets!! This was like $500 for tickets. I felt so incredibly grateful that I started to cry. It was never my intention to try to get anything free, yet I had been given a great gift.
I rode public transportation for the rest of the school year and got to know the system really well. Every time I took out a ticket I was grateful for the gift I had been given. So many times in my life I have been given unexpected gifts, and they made all the difference in the world to me. So if you can give an unexpected gift to someone else, why wouldn’t you want to?