Thor's Day: A love ethic in practice

Celebrating life by helping others

By Joel Kleinberg

Years ago I decided to make people's lives happier, not harder. So I decided I'd never write letters of complaint, but rather I'd write "the boss" only to compliment exceptional service. Here is one of many notes written over the years that can serve as a format for yours:

Last Saturday, I approached your Bell Desk for some assistance in checking out.
    Ms. Granados was manning the desk. Despite the pressure of having to deal with several people at once, Ms. Granados was able to remain pleasant and cooperative and accomplish everything that was asked of her. The Mission Inn is lucky to have Ms. Granados as one of its employees, and I hope you will thank her again, for me, for her help.

This practice has had two fringe benefits: I let go of the anger stirred up by a bad customer experience. After all, why let an incompetent employee continue to spoil your day by your continuing to obsess over a bad experience? And I feel good thinking about how good the recipient will feel when the boss passes on my thanks. I hope you'll similarly enjoy spreading good cheer.

And now, to put that in the larger perspective of the evolution of life on our planet:

The Wedding Day Bouquet

In a bouquet, countless questions:
From what common ancestral seed,
down what evolutionary labyrinths have come
all these wondrous flowers, white,
puffs of white,
slender, tickling whiskers of white,
furled ribbons and starbursts white?
A wedding day bouquet
celebrating anew that mysterious gift, Life.

Copyright © 2014 by Eric Meub Joel Kleinberg is a beloved friend from the Yale Class of 1964. He was kind then, and he has continued kind. Joel lives in Los Angeles, where he occasionally still practices law. Joel wrote the two sections separately over the years for his children.