Paying It Forward

Just as it’s often true that “hurt people hurt people,” so the reverse is also often true: grateful people give to others. In December 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic filled with enough social crises to shake anyone’s faith in goodness, the BBC reported on a “pay it forward” cause-and-effect at a Brainerd, Minnesota, Dairy Queen drive-through. When one customer asked to pay for the car behind him in addition to his own meal, he started a chain reaction that lasted through nine hundred...